Larry - the Xmas Special

Larry is secured in Dar Es  Salam while we do the hard yards on Zanzibar, however, it would be cruel not to turn our minds to the plucky little Brit who has taken us 9,000km into Africa.

It has not been all plain sailing, and whilst Larry has always got us to our destination, we have had a few quality dramas. All of the problems relate to the appalling road conditions, and Larry’s age. We have done over 2,000km on the worst dirt roads you could imagine. Some of the ‘bumps’ have been so bad I think we suffered from concussion!

What has broken:

Engine a little hot after huge hill climbs-                              Welded new spot light mounts above radiator to improve low speed air flow.

Gearbox oil leak-                                                                     Pull down and repair upper selector housing.

Damaged oil cooler line-                                                        Patched steel hose and re-routed to avoid steering arm.

Cracked ball joint, dented sump, bent drag link-                   This was our pot hole disaster, pulled sump dent out, replaced tie rod end, straitened drag ling, string and tape measure wheel alignment.

Leaking thermostat housing-                                                  Stripped, filed all faces and sealed with master gasket.

Damaged radiator core and thermo fan-                                This was when the fan tore out of the radiator. Removed radiator and soldered damage. Welded steel struts to mount fan to (now very nice!)

Cracked chassi-                                                                       Gas welded crack, then ark welded a 3mm patch plate over entire section. …seems to be OK!

Cracked Air cleaner mount-                                                    Manufactured new steel one out of 2mm plate.

Cracked expansion tank mount-                                             Manufactured new steel one and mounted to radiator support mount.

While this seems like a fair bit a damage, Larry has really impressed me. We have driven up clay and
rock tracks that I seriously thought we would need to winch up…. without even coming close to being bogged. In sand and mud, he has been a champion.

On the good roads we can easily sit on 110km/hr….but those roads are getting hard to find since we left South Africa. The stiff suspension is our main Achilles heel. Whist it stops us ‘wallowing’ with the extra weight, every bump shakes the hell out of us… and has caused most of our problems. I guess that’s why the new Rovers changed to coil springs. I plan to pull the front springs apart in Kenya and grease between the leafs to reduce the shock. I know it will reduce their load bearing…but I’m good with that.That being said, Land Rovers are everywhere, and they really love them here, especially the old ones. I have lost count of how many offers we have had to buy Larry. Whilst I do like a good Landcruiser, they don’t seem to cut the grade out here. They are too expensive, and too hard to get spares for.

An African Xmas

Well who would have thought that we would be living our dreams and find ourselves on Zanzibar for Xmas day - we really are truly blessed.

The morning started the same as the last 5 to date, a swim in the sea followed by a breakfast of fruit and pancakes served on our veranda overlooking the sea (now you can see why our Hilton gym membership is such good value) - oh and fruit mince pies which we searched the island for getting a number of interesting variations including a whole date cake (it is not christmas without fruit mince pies).

It was surprisingly surreal in that Christmas day wasn't too much different from home - ate too much, a few too many gin and tonics, and a few swims (it was very hot). Dinner was turkey with all the trimmings (an English lady owns the place we are staying - which is going to make today fun because I just saw the cricket score).

Dave was very happy - he managed to negotiate the purchase of a "traditional" masai working knife (going straight to the pool room or in Dave's case the study where he has a collection from our past trips). The masai are the tribe in Tanzania/Kenya that are tall and skinny, wear red, tend cattle and the like. There are a few on Zanzibar at the moment trying to sell masai beads to the tourists. We have affectionately named our masai friend Marty Masai whilst he seems a little short and overweight to fit the masai bill what he lacks in tradition he makes up for in persistence. For the last 5 days he has been trying to convince us to buy something from him turning up when you least expect it - so much so that I was considering a stalking order but his persistance paid off. A photo of Marty selling his wares to some more unsuspecting toursists is included - little do they know he is going to be their new best friends.

I hope all of our family and friends that are following us on our adventure had a fantastic christmas day - we have both very much got itchy feet and are looking forward heading to Arusha and the Serengetti for new years.

Zanzibar - the beaches

We have left Stone Town and are now trying to resist the continual intoxicating beauty of Zanzibar’s Northern beaches.

Prior to heading North we went on a ‘dolphin experience’. We assumed we would stand on the beach and have the little chaps come up for a fish or something….. not quite. We arrived at the beach to be fitted up with very shoddy snorkelling gear and were escorted to our own boat…. which then joined a flotilla of five other boats.  We roared out to sea like a scene out of Navy Seals, each boat jockeying position …for something.

The word was spread…dolphins off the bow…and then our assault commenced. As the poor buggers were getting a nip of air, all of the boats descended on them,  frantically disgorging poorly prepared divers on top of the dolphins.

The dolphins responded appropriately, and just swum away. It really was an un regulated disgrace…..that being said, when the dolphins came up near our boat  I jumped in without the  rest of the assault group, and had the pleasure of swimming with three very large dolphins for a little while. They seem much bigger when you are in the water with them.

They were very chatty, and gave me a good look over, but I got the distinct impression they were pretty jacked-off with the whole fiasco…. and as the other boats descended on us, they took off.

We are staying in a cottage at Nungwi, on the North coast. The beach is amazing, the sand is like pure talcum powder…it’s so fine it sets like a layer of plaster on your wet feet. The water is the type of blue you only get in photo shop pictures. Our section of the beach has a small reef that sets up semi-circle between us and sea….it really is beautiful.

As pretty as it is, I was bored within a day, and we have set up some good snorkelling trips to various reefs to keep us on the go. I am of the view our best coup has been setting up daily access to the Hilton ‘Double Tree Resort’ gym. We approached the staff and they told us it would be $30US a day per person to use the facility. We then had a chat to the gym ‘manager’ and established a far more suitable personal payment to him to allow access….more like $3US!

This evening we will do some  training with all of the locals on the beach. Each evening they crowd out the beach and run everything from kick boxing classes to yoga….it really is a sight. At the end the whole town seems to run into the sea to cool down, the women all still wrapped up in their Muslim attire!

They hire trail bikes here that appear to be reasonable sound, so I sense some Crusty Demon action coming up (watch for the photos).

The food is excellent here, with good variety, and we are really looking forward to our Zanzibar Christmas feast.

Larry is safe and secure on the main land, and will be well rested like us for our push north to the Serengeti.

Zanzibar - Stone Town

The first part of our trip to Zanzibar has seen us spending 3 days in the historic Stone Town wondering through its narrow streets and alley ways. The old town has glimpses of its portugese, arabic, british and slave trading past all of it supposedly captured in its doors - we have tried to capture it in some photos but I think our building photography still needs a bit more work.

 

Zanzibar is also known as the spice islands and you can get any spice imagineable at the local markets. Might even be enough to lure me into the kitchen - who am I kidding but I might luck upon having another personal chief who will do them justice.

 
We have definately used our time well to recover from some long days travelling by shopping, eating and drinking cocktails whilst watching the sun set. So far Zanzibar has well and truely lived up to all expectations !!!

Ruaha National Park

Well travel in Africa is not all beer and skittles. After crossing the border into Tanzania our focus was getting Larry's radiator problems fixed. We ended up in the town of Mybea where Dave (ably assisted by a team of Toyota mechanics) worked into the night to fix the radiator whilst I watched Tanzania play play soccer with the locals (shame I am not more handy).

We then headed to Ruaha National Park which is the second larget game park in Africa. Well we put Larry's repairs to the test with 120km of bad dirt roads to even get into the park and it didn't get much better from there. After demanding $120 in US dollars (good way of getting foreign currency) for 24 hours in the park we realised why everyone stays outside the park. Our accomodation was a very stylish small garden shed which was perfectly suited for the 35 degree heat.

Reality none of this would have mattered if we had got to see the pride of lions that the guides were talking about however as we saw in Malawi as soon as the rains start the animals scatter to all parts of the park - oh well the highs and lows of travel in Africa. Some pictures of what we did see.

We then started our track towards Dar es Salaam and realised that Larry also didn't appreciate Tanzania's national parks or the tendency to put ripple strips and speed humps in every village in Tanzania and there are a lot of villages. Needless to say we found ourselves back at a roadside mechanic getting more repairs - welding for cracks in the chasis.

All of us have made it to Dar in reasonable shape despite the last 20km taking 2 hours (terrible traffic and a GPS that decided to pack it in at the best time). We are all looking forward to a break from the Tanzanian roads with some well earned time in Zanzibar.

Vwaza Marsh - Dickson's Jungle Cookies

Our journey into the National Parks of Malawi have been quite something.

The day we set off from Nkhata Baya there was a diesel shortage in the country. A nice chap from a servo called around and found a place near the Tanzania boarder that had fuel.  We had to do a 220km detour to get diesel, needless to say we filled both tanks right up!

The road into Vwaza Game Park was quite bad, and a good 50km of car breaking corrugations.

We arrived at the park quite late and tired, and to find out we were the only visitors!

There was a lovely chap, Dickson, who offered to do all of our cooking. At fist I was sceptical, but he turned out to be a wiz on the camp fire. We just gave him all of our food and left him to it.

His specialty was ‘Jungle cookies’ which he baked in a clay oven….. they were delicious, and kept us going for days.

The recipe is attached, and if you like them, you can send him a donation to put his kids through school (there’s no free education in this country!)

After we had our dinner cooked for us, I offered to drive the cook and his helper home as it was raining…which they were happy to accept. In most parks you are forbidden to drive at night, and I know why, on my back from the staff settlement, I turned a corner to come face to face with a very surprised hippo! Clearly my bright spot lights dazzled him, and he took off into the bush…it is true when they say an angry hippo can run at 40km/hr!

We went through the same scenario after dinner on the second night, it wasn’t raining, but they were both very keen for a lift home (only about a 1km). Once I started driving I figured out why, as it wasn’t raining, the visibility was much better, and all my headlights picked up were different coloured eyes peering out of the bush at us! I don’t think I would have been keen on walking the track at night!

The park was nice and rangers we very kind to us…but the reality was there was not much wildlife to be seen during the day. The Elephants had moved on, and apart from baboons and impala, it was a dud. They do say during the dry, the elephants are always near the lodge lake.

The drive out of the park caused our first real show stopper mechanical failure. The constant vibration and huge thumps tore our thermo fan out of the radiator, damaging the core on the way. We spent the night at Kaponga doing a bodgie repair to cross the boarder in the morning.

The border crossing  into Tanzania was un eventful, except that they weren’t going to let me in without permission from my government… apparently all Tanzania Police officers must have ‘orders’ to leave the country. I assured immigration it was all OK, and we were in!

Country number 5 - Tanzania here we come

Recipe for Dickson's Jungle Oat Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients
2 and a half cups of self raising flour
2 cups of jungle oats
1 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons of milk
3 tablespoons of margarine
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Rub margarine and flour together with jungle oats. Add sugar, mix well. Make a hole in the flour and oat mixture. break in egg, milk and golden syrup. Mix all in and make a stiff dough.

Grease a baking sheet pan. Roll in a ball and place on baking pan about 2 inches apart. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes till brown and then turn on wire rack to cool. makes 36 to 40 cookies (surely I didn't eat that many!!!).

By Dickson Chawinga, Vwaza Ecolodge Box 170 Rumphi, Malawi

Traffic police Malawi style

The only detraction with being in Malawi has been the Police….they are a disgrace! We had barely crossed the border and hit our fist road block, the first thing that struck me was the local vehicles were being waved through, and only we were stopped.

The young constable walked boldly up to the door and said, welcome to Malawi, what did you bring for me?...Tanya replied, “a nice smile?”

He was clearly hoping for little more. I managed to talk my way through that one…showing my police badge and explaining I was a visiting police officer certainly helped…and he sadly let us go.

The next check point was about half an hour on…this time the young sergeant decided I must pay a $2000 kwachas fine, as the were not sufficient reflectors on the rear of our vehicle….but I could pay less if I paid him now! Once again the visiting police officer line worked, and he sadly let his meal ticket drive away.

We stopped for the night and decorated our car in enough reflectors to make it clearly visible from space.

We barley hit the road in the morning and were stopped by another check point, this time they decided that not having two reflector triangles would cost us $3000. The woman constable would not budge, and when her sergeant came over, he was pleased I was a visiting officer…..and because of that I could pay them only $1000, and it would all be OK. Right at that moment Tanya decided to take some photos of the negotiations…which did not go down well!

I finally agreed to pay $1000, so long as I could have a receipt and the name, rank, and number of the officer receipting the fine, as I informed them I wanted to speak to their district commander to ensure all correct procedures had been followed. I explained it was important for me to record their procedures in detail, as I may be able to learn from the way they do their police work.

That worked! We were suddenly best friends, and we could go on our way…they even wanted to pose for a photo for my professional journal!

So, just in case anyone from the Malawi internal affairs reads our blog…..these two idiots tried to extort money from us and were dumb enough to pose in this photo!

We were stopped again that afternoon, and we went through the list, show me reflectors ..OK, show me insurance ..OK, show me reflector triangles…OK….. She was struggling and then came up with a new one that she was sure to catch us out… show me fire extinguisher! (smugly thinking she had just landed her meal ticket!)… she was devastated when I produced one from under the seat!

We drove on joking they will next want to check safety compliance dates on the extinguisher…and guess what they checked at the next stop!

We are currently fitting smoke alarms and escape slides in a desperate attempt to keep ahead!

Malawi - the warm heart of Africa

Well we have made it to country number 4 – Malawi and it is definately the warm heart of Africa. The people are friendly, the sun shining and the stunning waters of Lake Malawi warm.

We have spent the last few days on the southern shores of Lake Malawi at Cape Maclear and it is picture postcard beautiful. Lake Malawi is fresh water and stretches for as far as the eye can see and is apparently up to 100 metres deep.

Today we spent snorkelling around one of the islands – it was like swimming in an aquarium with hundreds of colourful fish which you feed by hand. I have never seen such vivid colours – blue, yellow, red – in freshwater fish. It did however get a little much once the bread was finished and they started nibbling on me (evidenced by my quick exit from this photo).

On the trip back we fed the local sea eagles which Dave managed to capture in all its beauty – this did however take a number of takes – which the sea eagle was happy to oblige given he was getting an easy feed.

A photo of Dave - wildlife photographer extrodinaire - is also included for those wondering if he is actually on the trip given the lack of photos on the blog.

We are going to track the lake up most of Malawi – I think it is going to be hard to convince me to leave.

Gorongosa-Elephnants never forget!

We have driven 6,000km into the heart of Africa, and are currently near the Capital of Malawi. The last week has seen us leave the sun soaked islands in the southern archipelligo off the coast of Vilinkolous and struggle into the only game reserve in Mozambique.

I could say many wonderful things about the islands in the archapelligo, but a picture says a thousand words....most likey 'sux to be you all at work!'







Our drive north to the reserve was a bit of a drama. We were travelling quite fast on a good road, when out of nowhere there was a perfectly square cut hole in the road about 2ft square and 1ft deep. We hit it doing at least 80km/hr....it was a quality show stopper (damaged sump, tie rod, etc) After a bodgy road side repair we had to drive 40km on the worst corregations I have ever been on. At low speed it was simply not possible..and would have taken 4+ hours. I recalled the 'Mythbusters' episode where they found driving at speed (reaching the same frequency as the corregations) smooths the ride out.

We went for it!

The myth turns out to be mostly true...it is smoother, just stopping and steering become 'challenging'. I spent a day fixing all that was damaged and Larry is whole again for those deeply concerned for his welfare.

At the park we did a community walk for three hours in the stinking heat...clearly Tanya's idea.








We were warned that the older elephants in the park survived the war of independence and then the civil war..which finished in 1994. Apparently the soldiers were quite cruel to the herds, nearly wiping them out. The good news is we saw one herd that had 83 elephants in it...the bad news is they HATE man.

As we approached the herd, they all drew into a huge circle with the calves in the midle, then all of them put their trunks up to catch our sent.... once confirmed, one would charge. I got one of the charges on video, which is amazing ( the highlight being two African girls hiding under the back seat)

This is the photo just before the charge.






Our next blog will be from the beaches of Lake Malawi.

We are in sunny and hot Mozambique….and loving it.

Any country that has an AK-47 on it’s national flag has to be a party type of place.

The border crossing was fun. There was endless paper work, finger prints, photos…etc, etc. We were later told they only do that to justify the huge expense for visa’s purchased at the border. At the boarder they cost 82USD, where as,  at the Embassy they cost 8USD (but take all day). Our little ‘fixer’ guy said to pay the border guard 100RND (apx 20 AUD) and he would not inspect our car or hold us up ( I assumed this was a lawful exemption fee, supported by legislation). We sailed through the boarder no problems.

The roads in Mozambique are infested with armed police check points. They are only traffic cops, but they do seem to wield some influence….that may be because they are all armed with AK-47’s! When ever we approached one they looked at Larry and just waved us on laughing…perhaps they just thought we were too poor to pay a bribe.

Our fist night was in the Captial, Maputo.  I thought it was a dump. We stayed in a backpackers for the night and were told ‘it’s safe to walk to dinner, but definitely catch a cab back….or you will be mugged. We drove to dinner.

We have been in Tofo on the East Coast for a few days now and it is divine. White sands, crystal water. We rented a little house right on the beach, and are just living the high life. Booze and sea food is dirt cheap.

We did a snorkel with whale sharks yesterday which was just breath taking. I swam at arms length from one for a few minutes, and no photo could do it justice.

Tomorrow we push North to the  first of the archipelagos before heading inland.

Hlane-Elephants and Lions-close and personal!

In the North East corner of Swaziland is the Kings National park, Hlane. We decided to really spend up and rent a cottage in the park for a few days ..a whole 35AUD$ a night. It was a Thatched, stone walled cabin with all the mod cons. .except power! There was a good gas fridge and a great fire pit to cook up a storm. Just outside our front door was a lagoon that a small pod of hippo were living in, and they turned out to be very chatty, calling out to us in thier special way, all day and night.

The roads in the park were very deep mud, and we decided to be lazy and have the rangers take us in one of their open top land rovers to see some lions and elephants. …no big deal, just a relaxing evening visit in a part of the park we hadn’t seen yet.

Our first break to the serenity was seeing a large mud and dust cloud about 50m in front of us, from the dust exploded two bull elephants having a full on brawl. It was like watching two freight trains colliding. One of the bulls had a broken  tusk ( what should have been an indicator to the other elephant that this guy likes a good fight). The loosing elephant  stormed off through the scrub looking for someone he could beat in a scrap….enter us in our Landover!

The bull full on charged at the car, and our guide floored it flat strap in reverse down the track to make good our dignified retreat. After about 50 meters, old mate thought he had won and called it quits. I would like to s ay I had it so together that I took perfect photos of the charge….but the truth is they are all over the shop.. an angry eye here, cranky ear there…etc..etc.

The image of the huge bull with ears out and trunk up charging at what must have been 20km/hr was life changing. I would like to see all ivory poachers tied to posts to let those boys practice their charging skills.

The guide founds a smaller (still the size of a house) female  with a baby. He told us she was a good ‘chaser’ so be ready for anything.  He backed the rover slowly into the mothers comfort zone, she gave a polite trumpet to indicate…back off dick head.

We edged a little closer.

This time I filmed the whole process.

 That mother  was all over us like a fat kid on a cup cake!

We then had the privilege of finding three female lions having a little gnaw on an unfortunate impala. I thought we would sit back and watch, but the guide idled right up to within about 5 meters. That sounds fine for a car in a lion park…but this was an open wagon with real wild lions. They were amazingly tolerant, and we took some stunning photos. The guide then warned us, and threw a ‘feather’ out into the lions ‘space’. Whilst I’m sure she was just curious, the lion was up and onto us , looking all the world like the perfect hunting machine that she was.

That prowling lion was no more than a meter from us, and the only reason we weren’t lion-snacks is because, she chose not to have a go.

Hlane was my favourite reserve, and we left with genuine sadness. …but it was well positioned for our boarder crossing into Mozambique, which is our next blog.

Walking with Rhinos

Well we have just had the most amazing 3 days in Hlane National Park in Swaziland (the Swaziland king's park).

The first afternoon we decided to do a guided walk (and for those that have been paying attention we haven't had much luck on guided walks to date). Well it was with much excitement we started out with the expectation of seeing rhinos. Our guide this time apparently didn't need a rifle just a well crafted walking stick was enough.

Well after 2 hours of walking I was beginning to see a similar pattern emerging -  especially when the guide started talking about ant hills and dung beetles but he promised he would find us rhinos and he didn't let us down.  We finally came across a mother and her calf about 20 meters away and then amazingly we walked closer and closer again.

The thing with rhinos is that they have fantastic hearing and smell but their eyesight is very poor so us being downwind allowed us to walk right up to them. We then crouched down and waited and amazingly the mother and calf walked right up to us trying to work out what we were.

Thanks to Dave for taking the photos because I was in total awe that I forgot to take pictures (keep in mind rhinos can weigh up to 2,500kg) - more photos attached now. It was a privilege being able to get up so close to these gentle giants and them not mind our company. Truly a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Amazingly I didn't think it could get any better but the next day was just as good (stay tuned for Dave's blog on our day with elephants and lions).

We are now in Mozambique and never too far from animals (tomorrow it is snorkeling with whale sharks). More adventures to follow I am sure

White Knuckle Rafting in SWAZILAND!

I was feeling that just being in the wilds of Africa was not cutting it on the Adventure meter, so I signed us up for some white water rafting.

I reviewed the safety records of all potential companies, and chose the one that had the worst...and cheapest.

We took off with limited instruction: lean towards rocks, look backwards after rapids to ensure you are both still in the boat...oh, and lift your knees up if you 'fall in'.

It all started well enough. The padelling was easy, the sun lovely, and there was only one other 'crew'. The funny thing was the other boat was crewed by the girl who told us this was a great first timers river...and very safe.

My suspicions grew when the guide pointed out where the crocs were sun baking.

The first rapid was called Monica Lewinski (work it out for your self). The next was a gap in a hydro weir, which was a good 6m drop...which was interseting.

We were smashing it, and cleared every rapid, where as the other crew were spat out of every one.

Perhaps we were getting smug, and the last rapid was called the 'initiator'....I think it should have been called the eliminator (grade 4+ rapid). Our approach was perfect...and then it went to custard!

We were both put through the wash and spin cycle and spat out. I ended up with two paddles, Tanya ended up with a boat for a hat.

The guide tried to clear it three times..and got spat out just like we did...but not with as much style...for beginers my arse! We both ended up with some dents and scratches...but pretty good considering.

I think Tanya will not be keen to do this again...but I have read about this awsome group that do the Zambizi River in tractor tubes....bring it on!

In search of Elephants

Well for the last 2 days we have gone bush and I have reacustomised myself with the love of camping (yeah right) in search of elephants. We have been in the Tembe Game Reserve which is right in the top corner of South Africa. The Tembe reserve is home to the largest of Africa's elephants.

We entered the park and were given a pamphlet of what to look out for in an agressive elephant - head shaking, front foot stamping, sniffing the air in your direction - all of which sounded like what elephants do so we threw away the piece of paper and decided to just stay a respectful distance. We stumbled across a beautiful bull elephant happily drinking whilst we took lots of photos.

With a little bit of apprehension we approached our next bull elephant - we were warned by the only other person in the park that an aggressive elephant was on the track. Well he was literally on the track (right in the middle of the road) and there wasn't anything aggressive about him - a young male that was happily throwing sand on himself (and of course the best sand was on the road). We sat and watched him for about half an hour as he continued to come closer and closer to us - happily looking for more sand and something to eat.

It was amazing seeing these beautiful animals in the wild - there are some amazing people doing good work to rehabilitate elephants across the world - if you are interested check out the elephant project in Cambodia, in Laung Prabang in Laos and in Thailand at Chang Mai.

After the elephant park we camped the night at Numbo reserve - well after seeing a rhino right at the start of the park we decided to go for a walk with a ranger and hopefully come across some animals on foot. Well our guide looked the part with a large rifle and shinny bata scout shoes - the animals were nowhere to be seen. After walking for 2 hours through a mosquito infested swamp the best we saw was a ripple from a hippo. That is not to say our guide didn't try - we walked up and back looking for this red crested bird as our guide did bird calls (that was never going to cut it after seeing elephant all day). Well finally our guide gave up and we trudged back to camp only to see more animals at our camp site eating the grass than we did on the entire walk. Just goes to show that they are wild animals.

We are now off to Swaziland to do some whitewater kayaking - I hope this blog finds you well.

St Lucia- going over the wire!

Whilst I know there has been endless requests for more photos of Larry, be patient, a Center Fold will be coming shortly. Today was our first 'on our own' wild life expose'. We took a walk over the 'wire' into wild country to see what we could see. The warnings add a whole new dimension to bush walking!

I was armed with my trusty pocket knife and car keys ready to repel any cranky wild life. Whilst the walk was generally sedate, we did stumble cross a family of warthogs, who are considered the hooligans of the 'veld'.

We then took a short drive up  forest track and  had to stop for a White Rhino, which was amazing. They realty do look the full 2,000kg when close!

We pulled over to the side of the road to take some pictures of Zebras, and they were so happy to have us there they let us walk up to the mob and pose for photos!

We also got close and personal with a few buffalo, which put on quite a show for the camera ( Sony DSLR using a Minolta 300mm lens with a Polaroid filter and hood).

The whole area is just exploding with animals of all shapes and sizes. We saw a leopard today, but he/she was far too quick for us to get a picture, but the cute fello in the last photo is indicative of what he/she would have been having for supper.

Tomorrow we head North, and I think we will both be sad to leave St Lucia...it has been the best so far.