Team at airport

Dear all

The team are now at Entebbe airport and ready to board their flight home.

The flight has been delayed by approx 30/40 mins so they might be a little late back but they are excited to be seeing you all soon!

Thank you all for following our blog and for all your comment and support. It's been a pleasure to keep you up to date with all the news!

All at Team Inspire UK 

Day 10: 26th Oct - Murchison

We thought waking up at 5.45am was going to be a struggle, even with our alarm. But luckily we were woken up well in advance by the huge cockroaches that had managed to get inside our mosquito nets. 

After waking up everyone else at 5am with our screaming, we picked up our packed breakfast and set off in the three safari buses to the ferry crossing.  Once we got to the other side of the Nile we spent 4 hours driving round the game reserve in our open-top buses, spotting as many of the Big 5 as we could.  

The landscape was amazing and we saw elephants, giraffes, buffalo, warthogs and hundreds of Uganda Kob. We followed a variety of different fresh tracks after the rangers radioed to say there might be lions near but none of us were quite lucky enough.  

After lunch back at the camp, we went back to the river where we went on a three hour river safari where we saw hippos and elephants and finally reached the bottom of the falls.  The view was amazing and it was incredible being so close.  Many of us ended up falling asleep at different points during the day but as Mark pointed out; it was merely a reflection of all the work we have done over the past 12 days.  We ended our last proper night with a quiz (which the girls team won easily) and shared our favourite moments from the day, before packing up our bags and going to bed.

Day 9: 25th Oct - Safari!

Written by James and Oli P.

We left the hotel at 7am and headed towards Red Chilli Camp, along the Nile.  We started our drive by going through small villages on rough, bumpy roads and the proceeded down one if the longest roads I have ever been on.  We then stopped off at Masindi for lunch which was 5 hours from Jinja and then made it to the park within 45 mins.

Once in the park we saw a large range of wildlife, we drove to the falls and had a tour of the surrounding areas.

The falls were amazing and visiting the different viewing points was worth the walk! Then, after a nice stretch of the legs we went to Red Chilli where we unpacked all 3 buses and had a briefing from the Ref Chilli staff.

Looking for our rooms in the dark was an experience to say the least.  After setting up our rooms we then sat down as a team to eat either chicken and chips, chilli con carne or vegetarian options.  Then after a briefing about waking up At 5.45 am tomorrow we walked our way to our rooms where en route we casually saw a hippo munching on the grass behind the girls's room.  Weird experience.

Day 8: 24th Oct - Last Day on Project

Written by Ollie Inglis and Henry

This Morning there was a buzz at breakfast because we were all excited for the last day of work at St.Patrick's.  We were eager to get going and finish the work we had been doing all week.  Even as we arrived at St.Patrick's we noticed the difference which gave us a lift to really work hard and completely finish the job. We split into three groups with a double classroom each and got to work touching up the cream and applying another coat of blue.  We let the blue dry and intricately painted the skirting board in red oxide, avoiding the still tacky blue. 

Then, Angelo arrived and with chalk in hand, he marked out a world map, Mufasa and Simba, the human skull (front and side), human hand bone structure, giraffe, elephant, Nemo, zebra, a knee and a duck. 

A group of about 8 of us started work on the world map, painting each country a different colour, which required mixing of colours and a very steady hand.   As the day went on the paintings began to come to life.  Everyone was either brush in hand or playing with the children while on a break, to make sure they didn't paint anything they shouldn't. 

As the paintings were getting their final touches you could hear the children practicing for the ceremony to say thank you for all of our hard work.  We changed into our polos and headed out for the ceremony, but first we were taken outside as the school had bought us all a tree to plant.  So, in the future, every time they see our trees they will remember the hard work and good things we did for their school. 

We then went into a large classroom and had thank you songs sung for us which included our names being called out before each verse so that verse was dedicated to us personally.     Then the children aged 5-7 came out and sung us some of their songs which included 'Row Your Boat'.  We asked if they could sing it again but if we could join in this time.  So, we gave it our all and finished the ceremony in great style.   The Headmaster thanked us again and spoke about how our teamwork inspired him and others at the school and that anything can be done a lot faster and more efficiently with teamwork. 

We then went back to the hotel in our last ever bus journey with Moses, we will all miss Moses, the man. Moses could drive in any condition, on any road with limited visibility and still keep us all safe.  We invited Moses in for a drink and we presented him with an LP polo which was signed by all of us.

We were then very excited as we went to get ready for fancy dress.  Our final winner was Kim John-Un, aka Ollie Inglis.

PS. We are awaiting the blog for this weekend - but the team are in Murchison Falls where internet access is not very good! We'll let you know as soon as we have something.

Video 3

Video 2

Day 8: 24th Oct - Video