Day 1 - Heathrow to Johannesburg

So after most of this morning sitting on my backpack in numerous different ways to try to get it anywhere near closed, I finally found the right method about 15 minutes before my lift arrived to pick me up. Months of planning and preparation for this trip and I decide to attempt to close the bulging bag (only 22.6kg by the way) at the last minute.

It's finally here... I've said it before but this time I truly mean it, I'm off on the trip of a lifetime!! 

South Africa has been at the top of my Bucket List since I was 10 years old and The Lion King came out at the cinemas. Because of the number of years that I've been waiting for this, my expectations are high and i'm a little worried that I have some completely irrationally grand ideas about what i'm going to see, experience and photograph. This trip should have animals (dear lord please let there be animals), landscapes and cultures i've never come close to encountering and hopefully a lot of other wonderful things in between. I'm also hoping to finally cross off my most exciting activity that i've always linked in head closely with South Africa and that's Cage Diving with Great White Sharks.

A 12 hour flight in front of me, I'm about to sit down to a filling dinner and potter about the duty free with absolutely no space whatsoever in my backpack to fit anything - who knew window shopping at an airport would be so torturous...