Hellooooo this is our first blog entry for you guys!! It's a little overdue but internet access is quite hard to come by in the african bush.

( Sarah) So we've just completed our two week trip in Africa and have now been in Perth for a day and a half. Africa was awesome and I can safely say that we will both be returning at some point in the future. Our trip with Acacia started in Johannesburg at 5.00am and we spent our first day travelling North taking in the sites of Blyde River Canyon (3rd largest in world) and visiting a Cheetah Rehabilitation Centre. After a long day driving we eventually reached our first camp after dark on the banks of the Oliphants River. To say we were in shock is an understatement. Not only did our campsite have no fence around it but we were only metres away from hungry hippos, leopards, lions and elephants. We actually saw our first elephant as were approaching our pitch site-it was literally right next to our van and it was an amazing feeling. Might I add that we only had one guide with us and he did not carry a weapon!! Is that actually meant to be safe?! So we spent the first night in our tent listening to hippos and leopards, feeling a little scared and wondering what we had let ourselves in for.

In daylight things seemed a lot less scary though- although it was scary just how close out tents had been pitched to the river! Ok this is getting way too lengthy and more to the point is taking me far too long to write so i'm going to try and keep it short and sweet now.

The first 4 days we spent with a guide named Wayne who to put it politely was a bit of a let down. Luckily we got rid of him on day 4 and along with 2 new additions to the group we got two new guides, Lucinda and Paul and they were fantastic!! We could not believe the difference and immediately it lifted everyones spirits. We were also joined a few days later by 4 new people and another guide, the super cool Ed-Luc and I developed a bit of an infatuation with him because of his cowboy hat and police sunglasses; he was all dark and mysterious. We soon got to know him though and rapidly realised that he was not that cool at all but he was crazy and very funny so he was good to have along. So after starting out with one bad guide we ended up with 3 great guides and felt very lucky by the end of the trip.

So to summarise the rest of the trip, we spent a few days on safari in Kruger National Park where we got charged by elephants and nearly gauged to death during an evening game drive- most probably the scariest moment of my life. Has put me and Luc off elephants for life!! We also saw 2 shooting stars one evening when sitting round the campfire which was pretty cool.

Wayne made us trek up a mountain to a supposed 'historical site' that was clearly marked No Entry and consisted of the remains of some walls that he could tell us nothing about -because of his crapness we missed out on the historical site that we were supposed to go to! Oh yeah we spotted leopard tracks on the way up the mountain so again I was in for my life-yeah, that was not such a good memory.

We did another game drive in Chobe National Park which was much better than Kruger and we saw our first lions so I was very happy.

We spent a couple of days in Zambia where I did a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls-well worth it, visited the falls from ground level-spectacular, and did something called a half day gorge swing which consisted of abseiling down a gorge, running off the edge of the cliff on a zip wire (did that twice) and falling backwards off the edge of the gorge attached to a bungee (a strong contender with the charging elephants for the scariest moment of my life). We also did a sunset booze cruise down the Zambezi river which was fun.

We then crossed back into Botswana where we spent the remainder of our trip before heading back to Johannesburg. In Botswana we spent a few days wilderness camping (ie no campsite, no toilets, no washing facilities, nothing!) in the famous Okavango Delta. This was to become, much to my surprise, the highlight of the trip. The only way to travel through the delta is in traditional wooden canoes called Mokoros. We were met at the edge of the water by a group of local villagers who became our polers and guides for the next couple of days. Luc and I ended up in the most ropey looking Mokoro-typical!! It was literally a few centimetres above the water and it leaked. Despite that we had great fun and a lovely poler called Gladys who would pick us water lily flowers as we went along. After a relaxing two hour mokoro ride which included a quick stop at their village on the way (very interesting) we arrived at the island that was to be our camp for the next couple of days. We set up our tents by the water, dug our toilet and then spent the rest of the day chilling out, swimming (with hippos and crocs) and watching the female polers weave baskets. In the evening we went for a bush walk around the island on foot- yes, all of the big 5 did inhabit the island and no, once again the guides did not carry weapons. The best advice they could give us was to zig zag run if an elephant charged us, stand still if we saw lions, avoid eye contact with a leopard and climb a tree if buffalo charged us. They did make us sign a lot of forms on this trip so that we couldn't sue them if we died- there was a form for this part of the trip too and I soon realised why! We did a couple of scary walks across the island during the 2 days (Luc and I opted out of the final one and had a lie in instead) but luckily the most we saw of lions and leopards were tracks in the sand. We also had a close encounter with some hippos during a sunset mokoro ride but as you can see we survived that one too. On our last evening the locals entertained us with singing and dancing around the campfire which was great and we returned the gesture with our own unique rendition of 'Old MacDonald had a Delta'.

Hmm just realised that my summary has turned into a full blown description again , so i'll finish up now. We spent our last night camped in a Rhino sanctuary in Botswana and whilst Rhinos drank at the waterhole we watched the sunset and had farewell drinks-a perfect end to a fantastic (if a little scary) trip. We left Africa feeling very depressed that it was all over and sad to say goodbye to all the fantastic people we met.

Hostels now feel like 5 star luxury but we are strangely pining for our tent under the stars and are very much looking forward to our next camping safari around Uluru. I bet Mum and Dad are keeling over in shock as they read that, but it is true I think Luc and I have been converted to the life of camping!!

Anyway Luc is going to write her piece tomorrow and hopefully we'll get some photos put up then too. xxxxxxx