After planning to go to the beach, pretty much all week, we woke to up to hard falling rain. Our first day off and it's the first day it hasn't been roasting. Apparently the whole of the last 2 weeks was a heat wave. Arriving from English weather to here in a heat wave hasn't been easy but it looks like it's over now and I'll probably be complaining soon that it's gone away.

Instead of going to the beach, we all had a decent lie-in, none of the 8am lie-in rubbish and had a sloggy day. We started it by watching a film with breakfast, trying to make our own Knysna Elephant Park monopoly, which is looking pretty awesome, and then another film. We did manage to get active a little bit in the afternoon when we decided to make out own bread. It looked amazing and was rising perfectly. It wasn't quite ready when dinner came around, and due to impatience we took it out early. It wasn't a surprise therefore that there was a layer of uncooked dough in the middle. I would have said, oh well, it still tasted amazing, but it didn't really! There wasn't enough salt in it. So we had an amazing looking loaf that wasn't cooked or seasoned properly. We still ate it for dinner though and I'm sure it will go this week. We didn't buy any bread because we were making our own so it's our only choice.

The German girls managed to wrangle some free tickets for themselves for a gig from a tourist that visited the park in the week. We would also have had a discount if we went, but we were reminded too late to start getting ready and make the most of the night. We just stayed in and had Charlotte in mine and Abi's room as apparently the girls have a reputation for coming in really late. It was fun having a little sleep over! There were no midnight snacks though, we were all so tired of doing nothing all day!

Luckily on Sunday we woke up to brilliant sunshine and not a cloud in the sky! Straight to the beach for us covered in suncream. Plett Bay is amazingly beautiful. The season is over for tourist so it was quite quiet, although a few remained wearing 'nut huggers'...yuck. It's definitely a surf beach as the waves kept on coming. We paddled in the waves and watched the boogie boarders. We're thinking of having lessons but it all depends if we want to risk it with the sharks. I say we should all have at least one lesson though. We had lunch at a restaurant on the beach which did yummy cocktails and fresh prawns for crazy little money. Seeing ourselves in the shade though for the first time was not a

pretty sight. We all had caught the sun, Charlotte not so much. The sun is so strong here. I've never known anything like it. We were all so careful though, putting suncream on when we came out the sea and continuously while sunbathing.

It didn't stop us staying out the sun though, which we should have done. The other girls had arrived at the beach and we went down to join them, now wearing our t-shirts constantly! Abi and I tried to go for a proper swim but were battered by the waves we could hardly get past our waist in water. It was so funny though, even trying to remain in one spot was difficult. When we were getting out, Abi got stung by a jelly. It's left some marks but hopefully, it doesn't look too bad.

When we arrived back at the bunkhouse, we realised how much sun we had caught. My worst parts were on my thighs and my eyelids. I have never really heard burning your eyelids, but I will never do it again. It is so painful. I'm really worried I've done something really permanent. We'll see though, my body with just have to do its job and heal itself. I probably shouldn't have put it through such a workout though.

The rest of the day for me was lying on my bed with my book, trying to read through the cucumber I kept putting on my eyes to cool them down. Working tomorrow is going to be interesting, especially with my back as red as it is. I hope it's not another really hot day.