Day 1 - The first leg of the journey

After a frantic morning at work, I managed to get home by 1pm and, being already packed, I kept myself busy mowing the lawn, tidying the house and triple checking the paperwork, Tracey clearly couldn't wait either and turned up 20 minutes ahead of schedule, bounding up the path with a huge grin on her face.
The traffic report for the M25 wasn't great but we forced down a cuppa and set off fully loaded with gifts for the kids, canera gear and severe excitement.
2 hours of Steve-Wright-in-the-afternoon later and we finally crawled up the drop-off ramp at Heathrow's terminal 5, where only slight queues at bag drop slowed us down, We had the perfect amount of time available to to head to the "Cavier House and Prunier" for a glass of bubbly and a platetr of mixed seafood to kick the adventure off with a bit of class.
The first flight to Johannes
burg was 11 hours and only slightly delayed with a good selection of films and food. We tried to sleep for most of it, managing a few hours at least. I know you're all dying to know how Tracey's got on with the toilets at 39,000 feet, but sadly she can't tell you as she didn't get round to trying them out and when she finally thought she might she came down with a bad case of travel nausea and couldn't stand, let alone get herself to the toilet anyway. I must admit I was a little shaky too but not down to the journey, more the lack of sleep. I had specifically taken my inflatable pillow to stop my head lolling from side to side overnight and then promptly lost it under Tracey's seat when we boarded!