The next morning we drove to a seal colony along the coast. I was expecting a couple of seals but this colony was 80,000 seals big so there were thousands of them chilling out on the beach which made it smell pretty suspect but it was amazing to see them all.

It's the rainy season and it was ridiculously wet which meant the road became a bit of a river so we had to go to Sokomund early - this is the river we finally decided we couldn't get across... at which point we cracked open the ciders and readied ourselves for another monster drive to get to the next place!

We were meant to stay up in this mountain range for the night, see some cave paintings and sleep out under the stars which are incredible because its in the middle of nowhere but unfortunately the weather had other plans...

At the campsite was a watering hole where you could go and sit and wait for animals at night. I managed about 20mins and I think I saw 1 owl but at least I got to try out my night mode on the camera!

Bit late in the blog for this but this is what we're travelling in - Songwe the truck! We went to see the salt flats and got absolutely stuck, cue manly pushing and digging and trying to lever us out but in the end we had to call up a tractor to come get us out... not too much of a problem as the cooler was full of cider so we were fine - when the guy came to pick us up he even said to our driver 'I don't get it they're stuck but they're all singing?!'

An Oryx - hadn't seen this guy before pretty prevelant in Chobe and as it turns out a very tasty game meat, only second to Springbock which was awesome. Still not sure I like they're version of dried meat which is Biltong but hey at least I'm trying them all..

We went on a game drive for 4 hours but not much was around although we did find this lion prowling around.

An arty shot of the road which I think looks good... shame I didn't realise a bit earlier that a bitumen road in the middle of the day will be ridiculously hot if you lie down to take this picture! I sat with a bottle of frozen water on my stomach for about an hour afterwards and thankfully it felt ok after that.

When we got to the campsite we went on a bushwalk to se how bushmen live and use the bush to survive which was really interesting, they told us all about the different roots and plants and how they carry water round in an ostrich egg as its very strong.

We spent the hour or so chilling out in the quarry and jumping off the floating platform - here's one of my better forward flips.

At the campsite there was a chance to go swimming at a quarry which sounded interesting so we all tooka ride on the back of a 4x4 to get there - noone expected it to be quite as nice as this!

At the next campsite we had the chance to go to a crocodile farm which was interesting - our guide was one of the scariest person I've met he had one arma nd at one point on the walk to the farm he said he could ' smell a big snake in the bushes just off to the right'!

Not manay animals around but you did have to watch out for aardvark holes! I only managed to fall down one...

An early morning bush walk the next morning - here's me looking very awake and fired up for it!

The sunset over the okovango delta... priceless photography by me!

Us in our boats at the okovango delta.

Next we headed to the okovango delta to stay an night on one of the islands there. We were poled out to the island through the reeds and set up camp on the island in the middle of the delta.

On the way back we were lucky enough to catch a whole load of elephants come ot the water for a drink and to cool off.

Our boat round Chobe National Park.

The cruise was for 3 hours and we weren't meant to get off the boat but one of us needed the toillet so we jumped ashore... only for one of the girls to shout and run back to the boat - she'd just seen a crocodile lurking in the bushes! We all jumped back in the boat after that.

The next day we went for a boat safari around Chobe on a little boat so we could get really close to the hippos and the crocodiles - I think we got a bit too close to this guy because he did a sort of fake charge at us at one point!

Me chilling out with the waterhogs aka pumba by the side of the road at one of our shop stops - this was a close as I was willing to get!

The next day we headed to Chobe National Park for a game drive. Unfortunately it's wet season there so all the animals don't have to go to the watering holes so they're really hard to spot... except the hippos which love all the water! There guys were chasing each other around and were suprisingly quick!

We were staying at a place called the waterfront so when we weren't whitewater rafting or on elephant safari we spent the time chilling out at the pool and at the bar which looked over the zambezi. This is the view from the bar the evening after our elephant safari.

The next morning we went for an elephant safari which was fun - elephants are huge! Unfortunately it rained the whole time so we made good use of the ponchos they provided and when it rains the animals all hide so we didn't get to see any apart from maybe a couple of birds but it was still fun to ride an african elephant.

I heard there was a golf course at livingstone so decided to take myself there one morning for a round. At a cost of $2 I also got myself a very able caddy who I'm not entirely convinced had played golf before but we had a fun morning of hunting round the bushes for ball - I only lost 3 in the end which wasn't too bad!

Me and ben practicing our paddling / action poses! We stopped half way down the zambezi to jump off a huge rock which was fun - the zambezi divides zambia and zimbabwe and we were jumping off rocks on the zimbabwe side so I think I can officially say I've been to zimbabwe! Not long after this the latch came off my underwater camera and its now still full of water so no more underwater shots for me but the big camera's still going strong!

So after Malawi we headed to the capital of Zambia, Livingstone to indulge in some extreme whitewater rafting down the Zambezi! Flipped the boat twice and there were crocodiles in the water - rock and roll!

The morning after a couple of people headed to the bridge over the zambezi to do bungi jumping and I went to video it for them - you do the bungi from a bridge over the zambezi which divived zambia and zimbabwe so you don't actually have to cross countries but there is a sign half way across the bridge showing that you have entered zimbabwe. A guy on the bridge sold me some zimbabwe dollars for around 50p (they're no longer in use because of the ridiculous inflation under Mugabe - they use american dollars now) so I'm the proud owner of a $50 billion note!

After Malawi we headed to Zambia and the capital Livingstone the home of Vic Falls. This was our first view of the falls discovered by Dr Livingstone and named after queen victoria who was queen at the time. It's an awesome view which pictures can't really do justice because of all the spray from the falls and how big the falls are but they're pretty incredible.

The next day we were going to get kayaks out again and go round the island but they were all out so we stepped it up a bit and me and ben took charge of a cat! It was going well for the first 10 mins until the wind died and then we spent the next 2 hours trying to get out the the island - it was a struggle but we did finally manage it although I had to swim the last 50 metres!

When we did finally make it out to the island we found some rocks to jump off with the locals. They were going for more ambitious running jumps but I think we held our own!

The view down the beach in malawi.

The next day a group of us got kayaks and peddalos and headed to an island 800m off the beach. We were told that 2 people could get in a kayak but they were ridiculously unstable and we kept falling in so in the end Lauren paddled and I swam / held on the back all the way out! While were were struggling the others were taking pictures and then peddled off in their peddalo while we were floundering! I think it might be all the water in the kayak that didn't help and the fact that we couldn't bail it all out fast enough! This is us overturned, not for the first time!

After Zanzibar we crossed the border and after a bit of a monster drive we arrived in Malawi. On route we went to buy some punch and then to an african market to buy clothes and the rules were that names were drawn out of a hat and whoever you got you had to dress for less than $5. Ben my tent buddy drew me and dressed me in a very fetching outsit of tight bright leggings, a leopard print top and a silk dressing gown! It was a great night I think we all ended up dancing on the bar by the end of it!

This is Mikey who was my able assistant in making the elephant he's the coolest guy I've met in africa - we ended up just playing with the children after which was fun so me and mikey hid in the field and then I chased him around a bit it was great.

We also had a chance to try our hand at wood carving which was fun we were given some pretty lethal tools and put to work! I managed a very good elephant and was over seen by the guys who taught us how to do it and some of the children from the village.

In malawi we went on a village tour to see the local school / orphanage and the local hospital. It was encouraging to see when we opened one of the text books that sex education was being taught and the risks of AIDS / HIV were being addressed in schools, at least on the face of it. There's still around a 50% AIDs rate in Malawi and in all the countries that we visited its been between 30 - 50% so its still a massive problem but at least here the children were being educated and when we spoke to the doctor he seemed really switched on about the challenges they face. Speaking to him it also seems that there's still a large % of people that go to witch doctors before they go to hospitals.

Before the border to Malawi we stopped to change our currency with a guy the tour leaders knew. It was this chap with ridiculously high wasted trousers and a massive amount of cash stashed in his socks! I'm thinking it wasn't entirely legit but he did do a

good exchange rate....

On the way to Malawi we had a bit of an epic drive but ended up staying at a really nice campsite where it was tipping it down but thankfully they had boiling warm showers and small bar in a thatched hut which served hot chocolate with shots of amaretto, what more could you want when its soaking wet outside! This is the view of the sunrise over the hut which I slept in - I couldn't face putting up a tent so I lay my ground sheet on one of the tables and slept out.

Because we'd been chilling out in the sun the day before and then someone had cracked out the ciders I did manage to get a leetle bit sunburnt so I decided to spend the next day in the shade on the beach and then to join the sunset cruise when the sun was beginning to set. I swam down the beach to get to the boat and this is the view as I got into the sea.

On the first sunset cruise we managed to get in some snorkelling as well (I wont bore people with pictures of fish because a) I have no good ones because my battery was running out and b) there's much better ones from the barrier reef!) The snorkelling was pretty good but there were sea mites which gave little bites which got a bit much. For the second cruise we saved some money by not snorkelling and just drinking!

That night we all took a boat to go on a sunset cruise which was awesome - lots of cider, lots of jumping off the boat, lots chilling out on the top deck and a pretty incredible sunset!

After stone town the next day we headed up to the northern beaches which are the most amazing beaches I've ever been to turquoise sea and white sand again - shame I had to pull such an interesting face in this photo... This is where we chilled out in the sea for a while and then someone bought us cider - not something you can really do down at shoreham!

The night market was full of stalls with loads of different food including some fairly sketchy seafood so I stuck to the 'zanzibar pizza' which is a bit like an omlette and tasted great. Once we were done at the market we headed to a bar called Mercurys named aftewr Freddie Mercury who was born in Zanzibar - bit of pub quiz trivia there!

That night we headed up to a bar for a cool beer to check out the sunset before heading to the night markets for some food. Here's me and Ben casually posing with our beers.

So after seeing all the spices and eating most of them one of the guys climbed up a huge coconut tree using just a piece of rope wrapped around the tree which was pretty impressive. Then we got to eat the coconuts!

Its a pineapple plant! who knew they started off so colourful and didn't grow on trees...

After going round the old slave market we headed out of town to go on a spice tour which was really interesting - I had no idea where spices came from! This plant is called a custard-apple plant and apparently they have it in Australia too but I never spotted it. Its not got the most original name its called that because it tastes like apples and custard but I'm thinking about importing some because they're tasty!