The first stages of our monumental trip

"Over the last couple of weeks – three weeks and two days to be precise - I have been raising money by participating in the Cycle of Life which involves me cycling 1,500km across Africa to raise money for African conservation projects. 

Damian spots a cheetah

Whilst visiting these projects I have found that their opinions on conservation are different to mine which I think is good because they know what they are doing and I am here to find out how they make the projects work so well.  Today we visited Children In The Wilderness, a project for children whose childhoods have been interrupted and disrupted by life threatening conditions such as illness, poverty and the HIV/Aids epidemic. It was an experience which hit me hard as I realised that things at home are totally different and in some ways easier to Africa.  In some ways my life and that of some of the people I know is similar to that of the kids we met in terms of what we’ve faced in our lives. But our actual day-to-day living experiences are so different. I found it quite hard to see the kids and to hear about what they have endured but we were soon playing a game of football with them. So I feel as if I have done my bit in cheering the kids up. 

Yes, the journey has definitely had its ups and downs for me but I can guarantee that it’s changed my prospective on life and my drive to achieve things.  All I have had to do whilst cycling is to think about what I want to do with my life and how to help other people and how I can make a difference.   And my answer has to be to take every day as it comes as you never know what could happen at any time."

Nearing the end and we're still getting along brilliantly!

In the past few weeks I have learnt to deal with things and I have stopped missing home for the time being. I am still injured which is frustrating, but I am still having fun with the team both on and off the bike. For example, the other day we had a mud fight in the middle of the pan and everyone was covered by the end of it which was great!  There has been a time where we rescued a flamingo but unfortunately the poor thing did not make, it but at least we tried.  It is coming up to the last couple of days now and we have a lot of things planned especially the big goodbye for the last night and the plane journey home will be lots of laughs.

Wish you where here!

Damian

See Xavier's blog 

See Zak's blog