Since Upington we've been hosted by Isaac and Liesel on their beef farm 'near' Vryburg (about 120kms away!), agreed our Botswana trip details and have headed in to Botswana. We stopped at the Khama Rhino sanctuary on the way to Maun and tracked a black rhino until we nearly bumped in to him, Fortunately it was early and cold so neither party felt like getting upset! Last night we were serenaded by lions and jackals as an elephant took down the tree near our ro...

Hi All The accompanying picture should make those style gurus Florian and Susie Kutz (of Toyota custard bus fame) extremely jealous. We have tried putting our ordinary tent on the Landrover roofrack in case we decide to leave the trailer in Maun when we travel to Moremi and Savuti and Chobe in Botswana. This configuration is of course completely lion proof (as I keep telling Angela) but may not fool the local leopards! Picking up on the odds and sods of the l...

Reflections on the Rainbow Nation After 14 months of travelling around South Africa and facing the possibility of not being allowed back in next time depending on the whim of the border officials, it seems a good moment to make a few observations about the country we've come to love. The scenery and the wildlife are breathtaking and hopefully some of the flavour of this has been evident in our postcards and photo albums since June 2006. We had visited South...

A quick update as the cost of internet access rises rapidly the further you get from Cape Town. Since the last update we've been in to Namibia for a week then returned to South Africa (Springbok) to see some more of the flowers of Namaqua. A very uncheerful immigration officer at the SA border concluded that we were border hopping and gave us 14 days to either apply to Home Affairs for a visa extension (not worth the time, effort or money) or get out of South Af...

Hi All Quick note from Springbok to thank Ken & Nancy, Heike & Clint and Simon & Lynn for their hospitality during our visit to Cape Town..we'll be back next week so don't change the sheets! (joking!) Predictably it rained on the way up. We overnighted in Clanwilliam in a chalet to escape the weather. It was 4C this morning there, compared to 46C when we visited in January! We managed to see some fields of flowers today when the sun came out, an in...