It sounds awesome to spend a few months on the road camping and seeing some of the amazing wildlife and scenery of Africa. The closer we get to going on safari (trip) the more nervous we get about making sure we’re really ready to go.

I just read about a couple who were on safari in South Africa who were in a rooftop tent and a lion came up and started making holes in their tent. When you hear of safety precautions like not visiting the toilet at night and sitting with your back to the vehicle, it makes you a bit nervous.

This week we aim to buy an air horn as apparently that will keep the lions and leopards away.

One thing we’re doing is knowing how to put up our rooftop tent properly. It’s taken a bit of practise but once it’s up it’s great. We bought it from an American missionary who had been in Djibouti for 10 years but came back to Kenya occasionally for a rest, and camping. Unfortunately he got cancer so had to spend a few years going back and forth to the US for treatment. Once he got better, he and his wife decided to return permanently to the US to take up a leadership role in a church.

We bought the tent off him and it had hardly been used.

When we went to Northern Uganda last year to build some toilets, we slept in it for a few nights. It was way more comfortable than what we anticipated. You definitely have to be careful for a midnight toilet visit. It took is a few days to realise there was another piece that attached to the ladder to make it lean on a better angle.

We haven’t slept in the tent when it is pouring down with rain, but it does have a waterproof cover on it. I guess we’ll find out very soon.

There are a couple of windows in the tent for ventilation and lots of pockets on the inside walls for putting in things such as phones.

You can hear everything from the tent, so if we’re in a campground that is noisy, we’re going to have to suck it up. I’m a light sleeper, so hear every animal moving, birds singing and people talking – even from a long distance.

Do we actually know what we’re doing? Sort of, but in the end like everything else, we’ll just have to figure it out.