Day 7- Kakun National Park and Elmina Castle

5am…This was the time we needed to be up today. Everyone managed it…except Jon!! Yet again Jon managed to come up with another excuse to justify why he was 25 minutes late! We set off for the national park, a 4 hour journey! The issues with money continued as the ATM machines only allow 800 cedi’s per day for each person. With all the bills needing to be paid (£6,000) the pressure was on. Luckily, Mr Street and the rest of the staff helped out by lending their bank accounts and we avoided the bailiffs.

The journey to the national park was one for the books. The driver, aka, Schumacher, decided to over take on blind corners, hit the vans top speed and swerve to avoid pot holes…all at the same time! Luckily we got there in one piece and set about ascending the jungle where the tree top bridge walk started. This walk was rated as the 7^th scariest bridge in the world. ‘How did they judge that?’ asked Mr. Street. This was soon confirmed. The bridges were 80m above the jungle floor and were made of rope, some old metal ladders and netting. A few of the boys ‘melted’ due to the persistent ‘wobbling’ by Jon. It was a great experience, one which we had been looking forward to all week.

From here we headed to Elmina Castle.

This was taken over by the English in 1882 and used to trade slaves all around the world. The boys got to see, first hand, the cells used to house the slaves as they waited for transportation. The most memorable moment came when the guide showed us the ‘door of no return’. This was where the slaves were sent when they were ready for shipping. Quite a poignant moment for the boys. The castle was great to see but we are all glad its usage is long gone.

The trip to Accra was quick and showed off the street markets of Ghana. Arriving back at Yiri lodge was quite exciting with the whole tour party having grown very fond off it. Our last evening allowed us to reflect on the trip. Part of this meant handing over a final present to Amazuloh and him giving us gifts to thank us for our help.

So tomorrow we are flying back home leaving at 10am local time. The only thing left to say is thank you to everyone involved; Kevin Reading, Rhys McDonnell, Harry Hartnett, Dieter Kerschbaumer, David Lanaway, John McCarthy, James McDonald, Raymon Hunte, Sean Turner, Stephen Malik, Alex Dean, Joe Mendonca and of course big Ben Dombrandt. And also our staff Tom Street, Krys Juszczyk, Saira Malik and Mr Andrew Dean.

Finally thank you all for following and supporting us during our time here in Ghana.