Ready to Go Just like to use this postcard to say a huge thank you to Pat & Roger De La Harpe for all their help, support and hospitality here in Howick. Their advice, tips, information, ideas, and contacts have saved us time and money on a daily basis. We'd also like to thank them for the loan of 4x4, camping and vehicle equipment. Their enthusiasm for Africa, its people, wildlife and scenery is infectious and invigorating. They can now have their house back (for a few months) and enjoy rumpy pumpy whenever and wherever they want (but not over the frozen counter in Pick'nPay please guys). We'd also like to thank all the people who've helped us equip, repair and service the Discovery and the trailer (William and Ted at Tyrewise, Mary, Willie and the crew at Outdoor Marine and Johan, Don and the mechanics at Midlands Caravans). Nothing has been too much trouble for them, the service has been superb and, like Pat & Roger, their enthusiasm for the continent and the outdoor life shines through. Finally we'd like to thank Neil and his team at Gwahumbe lodge for a brilliant 4x4 course last Saturday. Not many UK 4x4 courses go past hippo and rhino! We are off now to Namibia via Golden Gate National Park, Kimberley, Upington and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. We should be heading over the South African/Namibian border at Nakop on the N10 from Upington around 11 September (our 3 month visas expire 12 Sept so we'd better be leaving around that time!) Then we travel to Ai Ais in the Ai Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park to visit the Fish River Canyon area (second in size to the Grand Canyon). We will pop back in to South Africa on the reverse route and go back up the Kgalagadi in early October to meet up with Kevin "Frogman" Smith (the US biologist we met in Royal Natal), his wife Katie and US friends. We will be travelling the 214 km Nossob 4x4 Eco trail in convoy with them and a ranger vehicle for a 3 night 4 day off road wilderness experience. The trailer has to stay behind because of the difficulty of towing in sand (it is the Kalahari desert) so we've bought a small tent and will be sleeping under the stars. All our water, fuel, food and firewood go with us and we can expect some nocturnal visitors (lion, hyena, jackal) so leaving the tent for a call of nature will be "interesting". After that we may travel in to the Botswana side of the Kalahari if we can get permission and then it's back to Namibia to travel the length of that vast country up to the Angolan border and Etosha National Park. The next update will be whenever or wherever we can find an internet café en route. Hope you are all enjoying reading these postcards; we are trying to keep them short! Keep the messages going on the board please, we like to know what's going on elsewhere!