Christmas Greetings or Ralphie’s Rants 2 I’m afraid I can’t pass the opportunity to have a rant about Christmas; it’s too tempting to ignore! A friend who will remain nameless emailed a great Christmas card the other day that said “Happy whatever event it is, now f*ck off and leave me alone for the next 12 months” Much as I share these sentiments I am aware that some of our readers may actually enjoy Christmas. What...

Had a great 5 days in Addo Elephant Park, which was full of ....elephants. Now down on the coast at Oyster Bay, west of Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape. In the true tradition of the British on holiday we walked the local beach (beautiful white sand, huge sand dunes, dolphins surfing) in the rain.Thought we'd got away from Christmas but no, our fellow campers have Xmas lights all over their tents and caravans, and most have bought lovely white plastic xmas ...

We're off?????? After a depressing day yesterday, Marius at Landrover Upington has been working miracles and it looks as though we will have a workable fuel tank by lunchtime today. All being well we will be heading to Britstown tomorrow for an overnight stop then Addo Elephant Park in the Eastern Cape the day after, in time for our 5 day reservation there. We will have missed out on Mt Zebra NP but there is always another time! Thanks to everyone in Upin...

Loading a postcard from Britstown before we got there was tempting fate! When we were back in the UK people asked what our scariest moment in Africa had been, and we were pushed to answer. Now I can answer that question easily, a Landrover Discovery having a rear tyre blow out whilst towing a trailer! Fortunately we were cresting a hill at the time with a decent verge either side but to say I needed a change of underpants would be an understatement. We are fin...

We are not quite in Britstown yet but I doubt they will have internet connections, it is just a stopover on the way to the coast. We are heading for Mountain Zebra National Park, which (as even Gary has probably realised) is famous for mountain zebra, a sub species that nearly died out. We are going on to Addo Elephant park then doing a 2 month loop along the Eastern and Western Capes via various friends in the Cape Town area (they may not know it yet!) The in...