From South Wales to New South Wales - the mountain looms

Suddenly we're into the final few weeks and all is looking real. Very real indeed. We're talking 3D, HD, 1080i, better-than-the-movies Widescreen real. And as doubts about fitness levels start to creep in, Mr and Mrs Backspin (the nicest couple in England), Mr and Mrs G (the nicest couple in Wales) and the Ageing Hipster and Gooner D (the nicest couple in North London, although given the recent rioting a mile up the road from us this isn't difficult) - all decide to have a training weekend in the Brecons.

The training gets off to a flying start courtesy of Great Western Railways, who make the Backspins stand for the entire two and a half hour journey from Paddington to Newport. Fate stepped in to give them this extra workout, as they had seat reservations but were unable to gain access to their carriage. Running trains is obviously much harder than we think, after all they've been trying to get it right for more than a century and they still can't quite manage to get the train out of the station AND the people into the seats they've paid for. Still, if we had to settle for one out of the two, at least they managed to get the iron horse to run along the steel roadway and stop at the places it was meant to. Hooray for British industry!

Having survived (although Mrs B bottled it and sat on the carriage floor from Slough), we were picked up by JG and driven at high speed to the waiting pub for a decent meal and some well deserved booze. Might as well start as we mean to go on.

After a good night sleep, and a huge breakfast, we hit the hills for a brisk 2.5 hour trek, which had a higher climb than any of the planned days on Kilimanjaro. Thankfully all knees and ankles survived so well we did an even harder trek the next day. This time, despite the fact that our host's village was always in sight, so we'd always know where we were, we managed to get lost on the way down. But never mind, our trek team on Kilimanjaro will be responsible for maps and compasses, leaving us free to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. No major accidents here, except a couple of nettle stings, some blistered toes and heels, and some bruised pride as JG took an unexpected dip in a stream. Could have been worse.

The weary travellers returned to London feeling pretty confident in everyone else's ability to make the trek, with just a few nagging doubts about ourselves.

Not being the sort to let the grass grow under our feet, The Ageing Hipster and Gooner D flew to Australia the next day to visit friends and do more trekking in the North Queensland Rainforest. Specifically the Mount Sorrow Ridgewalk in Cape Tribulation. So called because, having smashed his ship to firewood on the Great Barrier Reef here, Captain Cook sent two scouts up the ridge to see what was what. They were never seen again. You'd like to think they stumbled upon a natural paradise and decided to set up home together growing exotic fruit, but historians suspect the worse.

Sorrow and Tribulation indeed, and perhaps Pain and Stupidity could also be added into the mix.  It's a 7 hour trek (3.5 there and 3.5 back) that goes from very steep to even steeper, to practically vertical, through dense, unforgiving rainforest.  For large parts we were on all-fours pulling ourselves up using trees, roots and vines.  Having hauled ourselves through this assault course we finally reach the small viewing platform, only to be joined a minute later by a local lad who had run up in 59 minutes. The bastard! And as that sank in, so did the realisation that we had get our weary legs into action and get down before the light went.

Anyone who has climbed a tree will know that going down can take as much time as coming up, and so it was. We had to retrace our steps, every single one of them, very very carefully, until, laughing in the face of Tribulation and Sorrow (possibly through joy but probably through some form of mild delerium), we made it back to the road, and even declined a lift to our campsite. Take that Mt. Sorrow!

Confident that Kilimanjaro won't throw anything like that at us, and keeping fingers crossed that we avoid yellow fever and altitude sickness, we give a cautious "Bring it on".

Next stop - the Doctors.