We've done it!

We arrived back on Sunday from Kenya after an amazing and truly challenging trip having made a group of wonderful new friends - the Cycle Kenya Team 2007 (pictured courtesy of Gareth Roblin) and been completely moved and inspired by ICTs work in Kenya. As promised Julian and I will try to recreate our cycling adventure day by day over the next few pages.

We left Heathrow on Friday evening and arrived in Nairobi early last Saturday morning. We'd already met Simon and Kate our "Action Challenge" reps and most of the team at Heathrow. At Nairobi we met up with our bus and some of the 'ground crew' (led by William) who would be supporting us throughout the ride. We than had a long drive (197kms) to our first night's accommodation at the Sportsman's Arms Hotel in Nanyuki. Here we spent the afternoon getting our bikes reassembled and otherwise sorted out for our first day's cycling, before relaxing in the pool and having dinner and (in our case at least) a relatively early night!

Sunday 11 Nov: Nanyuki to Nyeri (61 kms)

This was our first day in the saddle and was intended as a relatively gentle warm-up ride. We were all conscious that Monday was going to be our first long ride of the challenge. The roads out of Nanyuki were pretty good - reasonably level without any really significant hills. It was soon apparent that we had some good cyclists in the group, and we became quite spread out, though even those of us at the back were making pretty good time.

Each day's ride was split up into sections with breaks to take on more water, bananas, biscuits and fruit. Lunchtimes also fell into a regular pattern; the ground crew would find a spot, pitch a marquee for us and another smaller one for the cooks. By the time we arrived a substantial hot meal would be well on the way. We usually had between one and two hours for lunch - giving us time to load up on carbs and digest some of it before we moved off again!

Today's lunch stop was in a clearing surrounded by bush - some of the biggest eucalyptus I've ever seen. We also saw our first bit of wildlife - a couple of hornbills flying around the trees while we were eating - fantastic!

Straight after lunch we had our first taste of a steep climb out of the valley - the first three kilometres or so were the worst, winding up the hillside, before levelling out for a while. Just as we thought the worst was over there was another, shorter descent followed by a climb up into the village of Nyeri. This hill caught a few of us out, as it didn't seem to start off particularly steeply, but next thing you knew you were in completely the wrong gear and battling to find the right one! Thankfully we had a break near the top, at the English cemetry, where Robert Baden-Powell and his wife Olave are buried, with a view across to Mount Kenya (not that we could see it). Then it was on to our hotel, perched on the top of yet another short but steep climb!