WITH only the sounds of the rainforest around us and the snap of twigs beneath our feet, we slowly made our way into the forest in search of the gorillas.

Liz Pearson, the American biologist who runs the Projet de Protection de Gorilles (PPG) led the group, followed by Amos Courage, step-son of the late John Aspinall and manager of the project.

Behind them was myself, Natalie Passey, a nursery nurse at Teddies Nursery, Tonbridge, and her father Bryn, a Royal Mail postman.

By night the gorillas have a shelter built from branches in which they are locked to keep them safe. But every morning at 7.30am they leave it to spend the day in the forest.

It was only a few minutes before ahead of us amid the leaves, branches and vines we saw two gorillas sitting silently on the forest floor.

Liz gestured us to stop and looked for a spot to sit where the gorillas could come and find us. She directed us to a small clearing in the trees and slowly we moved there, sitting down as briefed.

As the gorillas had never met us before, no-one knew how they would react. Natalie, Bryn and I were a little apprehensive but we had placed our trust in Liz and Amos.

Soon the group of gorillas, including three females (rescued but native to Gabon) moved through the trees.

They sat down among us, some coming up to us, picking up our hands, sniffing our faces and stroking our limbs. The more adventurous, mainly Kiba and Kwibi, two of the older Howletts' seven, then clambered on us, pulling up and playing with our clothes.

It was a little unnerving to be face-to-face with a gorilla but we had the assurance of Amos and Liz that if the play became too rough on the gorillas' part, they would help us out.

Under direction, we began to feed the gorillas from the abundance of vegetation that has become their daily diet.

The leaves and stems of the afframomum plant, known locally as Ontongou, which smells of ginger when crushed, is a particular favourite but the gorillas also enjoy Marrentacae (Gougnu) and Pallisota (liloro) plants.

Kwibi took a particular shine to Natalie. In lowered voice Liz said maybe with her blond hair, she looked like one of the keepers who once cared for the gorillas at Howletts.

After a while, most of the gorillas began to lost interest and moved a short distance away to their original spot.

Always within sight of the main group, we moved to another space. Liz was pleased at the lack of interest the gorillas were showing. After all, these captive born primates, used to humans, are now living in the wild.

After about two hours, it was time to leave. We had to slip away unnoticed or the gorillas would try and leave the forest with us. Bryn summed up the encounter for everyone in one word: "Amazing".