Breakfast was delivered on our patio overlooking our awesome view of Knysna lagoon at 9am. I am very quickly becoming accustomed to this lifestyle so Nan and Pop please make sure Ashlee is trained up to prepare breakfast in the morning and bring it up to my suite.

I was settling myself in for another day of solid eating but Elstub marched me out the door and told me I had to do some physical activity, can you believe it. I thought my new little rounded belly was quite cute, guess not. So she drive us out to Knysna forest where there were some walks that were on our tourist map. When we got out there we discovered that our map was from 2008 and most of the forest had been cleared and what was left of the trails had been unused and overgrown for some time. Shame, where's the nearest cafe?

Not to be beaten she reconsulted the map, found another walk and promptly drove me there. It was a 3km walk through some pretty dense forest where over 400 elephants used to roam. Due to forest clearing and poaching there are no elephants left in the area. The last ones were sighted out there in 2003. It's so sad that humans just seem to ruin everywhere they go. The other sad thing was how unfit I have become. One k into our little walk and I was huffing and puffing as though I'd run a marathon. I even had to stop half way for a little drink break and the whole walk was only 3k's. The only thing that got me through the walk was knowing there was some food in the car.

After the walk we took a drive out to the headlands at the top of the lagoon. There are some massive homes out here. There is definitely money in Knysna!! Then another stop at an African arts and crafts markets. We are becoming a little jaded with the markets however. They all sell the same stuff and assure you that they painted it, made it or took the photo themselves but it's the same photo or artwork that we have seen at every other market between here and Cape Town. I'm not entirely sure they did make it themselves anymore. Only took me a week and a half to figure it out though.

Our next stop .... Drumroll please because we are really excited ..... Knysna Elephant Park.

We got here at around 3pm and checked in to our room. It's such a cool set up. The building itself looks like a huge industrial shed. There are 6 separate motel rooms which all share a communal living area that looks out over the sleeping quarters for the 9 elephants that live in the park.

After we got our room organised we took a tour to find the elephants that roam free around the 250 hectares of parkland. When our guide had found them we walked over armed with a couple of buckets of food. As soon as they saw our little white food buckets we were inundated by massive elephants. They came from everywhere. The guides ended up taking the buckets off us and just giving us one piece of food to give them at a time. It was incredible. They were so placid and so smart. The guides seem to have a great relationship with them. The guy with us would tell them to open their mouth and they would. Shake your head and it does it but not in a cheap circus performance kind of way. All these elephants have been rescued except for a couple that were born here and one of them is pregnant now so they are used to having people around. It's just mind blowing that we got to be so close to them and touch them. Elstub even got to give one a hug.

The elephants come back into the boma at around 5ish and as soon as it got around that time, Sally, the matriarch of the group started heading in and all of the rest followed her as soon as she started moving. We then got to walk with them back to the boma to put them to bed for the night. It was incredible. We are now completely infatuated with elephants. So much so that on the walk back to the boma it was Elstub who said she wanted to take one home. If I keep up with this eating regime she may just get her wish!!