Days 39 & 40 - Travel home to Perth

The alarm went off at 4.40am. We'd packed the night before so we got dressed & got into the cab we'd ordered the night before. The taxi ride to Kilimanjaro International airport is about 45 mins. I'm not sure why the airport is so far out in the middle of nowhere. We thought we'd left ourselves enough time but it turns out that we looked at the arrival time, not the departure time & were very lucky is was a small airport & were able to pretty much get straight on the plane. If we'd missed the flight, the next one wasn't until late in the afternoon & would have been cutting it fine to catch the connection to Johannesburg. We snuck onto the Precision Air ATR-42 while it was still dark & settled in for the 25 minute flight to Nairobi. (The photo below was taken in Nairobi.)

As we climbed through the clouds we saw the sun sneak a look over the horizon.

As we tracked north & the sun started to flood the sky we caught our first look at the mighty Mt Kilimanjaro.

 Kilimanjaro is the highest freestanding mountain in the world & the highest point in Africa. Even from the air its an impressive product of mother nature.

Before we knew it we were touching down in Nairobi. It seemed like an eternity since we'd landed there from Rwanda 10 days ago. Nairobi is a hub for air traffic for East Africa. Most flights from other continents (& other parts of Africa) land here & you can get a regional flight to pretty much any country in East Africa and some others close by like Ethiopia.

We Arrived at 6.50 am & our outgoing flight to South Africa wouldn't leave until 4.45 that afternoon. We'd been dreading this layover since we booked the trip. Considering what a bustling hub the airport is, there is very little to do or even many places to sit. There are a couple of commuter lounges that cost $25 USD for 3 hrs. We wandered about a bit, did some souvenir shopping to kill some time, then hit the lounge for a while. It was air conditioned, had free food & snacks, and comfy couches. Lucky for us there weren't many other people there. It was a boring, but reasonable pleasant way to fill in time. I set about writing the last few notes of my travel diary while Kerri read her book.

Once the 3 hrs were up, we headed back out into the terminal to find some lunch (and it was awful) & wander around to do some more shopping. Once we were bored of that we went back to the lounge to wait out the last few hours for the flight. Finally it was time to leave and we were so glad to be finally heading home. (The morning flight had taken us North & further away.)

The flight to Johannesburg was about 2-1/2 hrs and being that we left late in the equatorial afternoon it wasn't long before the sun disappeared over the Western horizon. We wouldn't see it again until we were over the Indian Ocean.

We flew into Johannesburg in the dark with the city lights guiding the way. Walking into the terminal it felt like we'd come back to the Western world at long last. we were now getting excited about the thought of being home within hours. We had to kill about 3 hrs in the Airport but there is lots of space, decent food and rugby merchandising shops. We caught a few winks of sleep & watched the planes come and go. Before we knew it our plane had arrived & the final leg of our 6 week around the world trip was about to begin.

Nine & a half hours later we were crossing the coast about 30kms North of where we live in Perth before touching down at Perth International. It was mid afternoon when we arrived home to our two moggies who seemed none the worse for wear after 6 weeks being spoiled by the house sitter. They were a bit weird to start with but they forgave us once they were fed.....

What an epic trip. We saw such a huge variety of scenery, animals & people. It's going to be hard to top. Six weeks on tour covering such a wide variety of climate & moving so often was probably a bit ambitious in the end.

Join us for our next travel adventure................