These next few entries are just catch ups-you dont have to read them! lol

Wow. Another busy week.

So spent last Sunday (the 24th Jan) with my Dad-we just went to lunch and walked round town, the beach and showed him the house. It was nice actually. J

Monday started with a bush walk to 'Gwala Gwala' which means 'the one that runs away' and refers to this really pretty bird which is very hard to see! Good morning and what really finished it off nicely was a nice mango smoothie in one of the coffee shops in town!

We had 'project photography' in the afternoon which is basically where all the photographers go off to different projectsin order to photograph the other volunteers. I went shopping… Yes I'm serious! I had to take photos of the food/uniform shopping for some of the projects here. It was definitely a challenge! Tonight was a slideshow of everyone's ten best photos of the week and it was really good to see them all.

What a brilliant day on Tuesday!! :D Visited the crocodile centre in the morning and this time we were 'lifting nests' which basically involved the workers there shoving off the crocodile with a big stick and a shield and then we dug up their nests! It was so much fun! We would dig and recover anything between 20 to 40 eggs in one nest and then put them in the incubator so they have a better chance of growing. At one stage my but was within inches of the crocodiles snapping jaw and all that separated us was this wire 'shield' thing!! (Check out the photo at …) Some people were a little scared to say the least but I just loved it!!

A long game drive was on the menu for the afternoon; including watching the sunset and a night drive!This was awesome as we FINALLY saw a leopard!! :D Also saw two pythons on the road as well as rhino and her baby and so much more. The drive even included a gin and tonic and some crisps and tea when we stopped to watch the sunset! Awesome!

Next morning was another game drive and we didn't see much but did see that 'hard to see' bird I mentioned above! Also saw two rhino just lying on the side of the road which was cool!

The afternoon called for the Enviro Club at the High School (which out of interest is the high school which Charlize Theron visited in her African Outreach programme!). We found a new garden area, got the kids to make posters on the compost box and how they would build it and had a litter picking competition! Really enjoyed that even if there was A LOT of debating and uncertainty about the plans beforehand…

OH and also did an INTENSE run with a group who always go here and WOW I am seriously unfit! It's going to take some convincing to get me to do that this Wednesday… But DID feel like amazingly energetic after I'd recovered so will see… :S

Thursday morning was another game drive but due to the rain we went to the Hluhluwe side instead of the iMfolozi side of the park. Amazing how different it was considering they are right next to each other! Even though it was raingin we had another AMAZING day! BIG herd of elephants right by the road having a md bath as well as a herd of giraffe-with babies-RIGHT on the road! But the highlight was definitely having a lone lioness pass our car less than half a metre away! We then proceeded to follow her down the road (she took no notice of the cars!) for about 40 minutes! INCREDIBLE. She would just stop to drink the puddles of water in the road and then carry on along her journey. Eventually we overtook her and then would drive ahead and swerve to the side to get photos of her coming towards us and then off we would roar off before she got too close (as our windows didn't close at the back!). Simply amazing I must say.

Friday already! We went to the projects as it was raining which meant no Pan for us unfortunately. However I went to the one crèche as well as HIV education at the primary school to photograph and of course that was amazing as the kids were just great.

Me and Esther then had the afternoon to edit photos (and the other 3 went to the orphanage). Wow you certainly don't realize the amount of work in editing photos! And I'm STILL really far behind! :o

We decided to go out for drinks which I was excited about. I wore my new ('scandalous' ie-very short lol) dress that I got for my birthday and me, Esther and Elise all went out. It was a really good night actually and we all had fun! Went to this cocktail bar and then this bistro and back to the cocktail bar.. Ye it was a good night! J

This weekend my Dad was STILL here and said he wanted to meet up. So we decided to go to Sodwana Bay for the weekend as it's meant to be really good diving. He picked me up early Saturday morning and we drove about two hours north. The roads were crazy and seemed to get worse the closer we got!

Except checked emails before we went and I had a MAJOR stress as Mozambique trip looked like it could slip through but luckily it is all sorted now-thank GOODNESS! :o

We eventually arrived at 'Coral Divers' and just chilled for the afternoon as too late for dives. So I showed Dad some of my photos and we visited the beach and relaxed in our really cool rustic little accommodation. That night was dive planning and WOW there were a lot of really cool (well, fit, lol) scuba/surfer dudes and lots of young people which was cool! Me and Dad watched Slumdog Millionare on his little laptop before going to bed and wow-what a movie! Intense but very good!

So up early and off to do two dives this morning. Was a little apprehensive-as I always am due to my ear issues but still excited! Both of our dives were on '2 mile reef' and WOW. Is all I can say.

I swear, do you think they will invent a way of living underwater anytime soon because I would LOVE that! I wanted to stay down there forever! :DWe saw turtles , a ray, amazing diversity of fish (some pretty massive ones!), coral and SHARKS!! It was awesome!! :DAh ye-just incredible. We also hired an underwater camera for the day so at least managed to get a few photos too!

Off at about lunchtime and we decided to stop at uMkuze game reserve on the way back. Was cool eventhough we didn't see much (LOTS of antelope and A giraffe!) but couldn't even get to some of the roads as was all flooded from this weeks rain!Back quite late on Sunday night and Dad stayed a bit for viewing of photos and food! Then we watched the Jungle Book and off to bed!!

This is the start of a new week today and started it with good news-my Mozambique project is sorted now as far as I know so that's good. J

Had a game drive this morning and a bush walk this afternoon (another one which seemed to end in milkshakes and iced coffees! :S). We didn't see a lot but still had a really good day and hopefully still got some photos (was concentrating more on birds/insects etc as that's what the database needs). We were all just so tired and not in the mode I guess.. Done a bit of photo editing this evening but still have SO much to do! Plus this blog plus emails AND apply for university accommodation and sort out HOW I'm actually going to get to Mozambique in a week! :S

Hopefully will get there…

So tomorrow is back at the croc centre and I'm excited about collecting the eggs again!

Anyway, I can't believe this is my last week-it's gone crazy quick and I'm going to miss everyone SO much!! I've settled in here and this feels like home now! :S

Wow sorry for ALL that text! :S J You don't have to read all ofthat! ^^^ But I'm guessing if you're reading this then you did… :S Well thank-you my keen followers and I hope I haven't bored you to death!

I must now got to bed as is 12 just about and I have to be up in a few hours for the sunrise! :o