24 hours later.

Okay so, departure on Tuesday morning was pretty hard. All the girls and family came round to my house to say bye and to wave me off <3 there were a lot of tears, photos and hugs... however I still haven't cried yet. I really do fear that I will just have a complete emotional break-down one day and Ashley will be left to scrape me off the floor.
Anyway, my most favourite memory was when the car pulled away they all carried on running after it down the street and waving! Top cuties. And if you know my friends you will know that not very many of them are runners, or even the running type... So I really really did appreciate the effort ;)

Saying our goodbyes :(

I'll skip over leaving my family at the airport cause they were just all snot and tears as imagined :P

Anyway, the flight from Newcastle to Heathrow had me feeling pretty nervous right from the beginning; I think that the idea that I was actually leaving only started to sink in then. Luckily the trolly-dolly came along and gave me free tea and biscuits, so I was pretty cushty for a while.
Then a lovely Nepalese gentleman started chatting to me from the row across the aisle - he'd seen my badges on my PT polo and started asking me what I was doing and everything. Turns out he was pretty awesome; he lives in Frankfurt Germany, and speaks six languages - none of them are Mandarin or Cantonese though, oops, I made the mistake of thinking he was Chinese but Nepal borders China! Easy mistake.  He met his wife when she was wearing a backpack whilst working with orphans in India, and now they're climbing Mount Everest together on November 1st just for the craic. He also told me about his mate who travelled the world for a year with only $3,000 and slept in a tent on golf courses in London - I know I'm talking about this guy a lot, but there was no on-board flight entertainment alright.
P.S. he says go to Costa Rica if you can. Apparently they also have really nice coffee.

Heathrow is massive by the way, if you haven't been it is like a shopping centre and a train station have decided that it would be a really good business move to let people fly to it. It's mental. There were also loads of people in Paralympic tracksuits milling about the place, not many of them had any disabilities though... Maybe that explains why they were chilling in the airport, rather than being at the actual games.

The 11 hour flight to Johannesburg was actual hell. Ashley definitely had it the worst though, the German (we think) woman who was in the chair in front of her decided to recline her seat all the way back before we even took off - you should have seen Ashley's face, angry didn't even cover it. I was laughing for a bit until her husband decided he wanted to recline too, and there we were, trapped in a tiny space with our faces pressed to the TV screens and not wanting to put our chairs back from fear of upsetting those behind us... it's a vicious circle.
Overnight flights are pretty boring to be honest, I watched Dark Shadows, ate the rubbish food and slept. Ashley slept and didn't eat the rubbish food which was probably a good move because I didn't feel to great afterwards.

So, 24 hours after leaving my house I arrived into Johannesburg airport. After being re-directed about 4 times to different areas of the airport we finally found where we should be checking in, it started off horribly. The internet told us that baggage allowances were 23kg, therefore our bags were under 23kg. At the desk this changed to 20kg, so we were over weight - going away for a whole year didn't even swing any sort of understanding from the check in lady so we had to pay excess baggage. It was only E126 so that's around £11, much cheaper than if we had still been in the UK!
Then an African gentleman asked us where we were going, we said Manzini and he proceeded to walk along with us and point at all the Terminal A signs, that was where we were going. Ashley kept telling him that we knew where we were going but he wasn't having any of it... then he stopped, looked at me and said "tip tip" while holding his hand out for money. Damn. Ashley had warned me about this. I told him sorry I had no money, and we had already known where we were going, he stalked off looking pretty angry.

Next was the plane to Manzini, on the connecting bus from the Gate to the airfield there must have only been 18 passengers... This plane was going to be pretty empty. As we were driving along we approached this tiny excuse for a plane, it had about 10 passenger windows and propellers. We were terrified. Luckily this wasn't our plane, ours was the same size but had engines instead of propellers, I have never been so pleased.
Even so, it was only 3 seats wide and pretty basic. I've slept in wider sleeping bags. The flight wasn't too bad, we got free tea and cheddar cheeses - it was a little bit like being on a roller coaster.

Arriving in Swaziland it wasn't what I expected, it was raining and cold, just like England. Getting through immigration was pretty intense, they really grill you on why you are wanting to be in their country. No problems though, and when we got through Kathy our host and Richard (her husband) and our representative were there to greet us with a hug and a smile!

I'll end it here... Hopefully the weather will pick up soon and we can get a real feel for Swaziland!

Kate xxx

Waiting at Heathrow Airport for our flight to Johannesburg!

Arrival in Swaziland - pretty rubbish weather :(