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!

This was where the men were kept before being sold. It was underground with only one window (the other was made later so people could see in the room) and housed up to 75 men. The vast majority died from disease, suffocation or other illnesses as a result of the cramped conditions.

We all decided to head on a slave / spice tour in stonetown, which included a free lunch. You could have either rice, pasta or mini green bananas with your meat so a couple of the more adventurous of us tried the bananas... never again! We got a whole plate of mini unripe bananas! Then we headed off to the see where the old slave market was and this statue was erected in a pit where the slaves were kept.

We decided to brave the storm and head into town to find a cannon in front of the town hall to pose on in the pouring rain.

One of the impressive big wooden doors from the streets of stone town.

We headed over to zanzibar on the ferry which took a couple of hours and arrived in stonetown, an old part of town which is predominantly muslim. It was sunny when we got there but then the heavens opened!

So we headed down to Dar el salam wasn't too great its a big city and was ridiculously hot but we were only there for an hour we took the ferry to the other side of town and stayed at a campsite on the beach where the water was turqoise and the sand was white for a night before heading to the island of Zanzibar.

The morning after the game drives we went on a village walk to see a local massai village before heading off. We were all feeling a bit worse for wear but it was great fun to play with the children and see how they live. That's three of them upsidedown in the photo! After this we headed down to the beaches of Zanzibar but I've got to run as the bus is about to leave so I'll try and update the blog with photos again soon!

After the serengeti the next day we headed down to the basin of the ngorongoro crater in hunt of the elusive rhino! We did manage to see one but it was miles away and even with all the zoom on my camera it still looked like a rock but 2 lioness came and sat right next to our van which great to see.

This is us on safari in the ngorongoro crater! The lid of the van lift us so you can check out whats going on. Left to right is Rich (more of his head in this one), Liz, Me, Bindi and Jules.

This is me leaning against our truck and surveying the plains of the serengeti.

Definitely the most exciting thing we saw on either game drives were 2 lionesses hunting a pack of zebra it was amazing to watch and I felt pretty nervous for the lions watching them stalk the zebras in the long grass - in the end the lions got close and gave chase but the zebras got away - we watched them for about half an hour as they edged closer it was awesome!

After a lot of hunting for leopards in far away trees we finally foudn on close enough to be able to make it out! Think leopards are definitely my favourite of the big 5 which explains why I took so many pictures of it!

We saw a family of elephants cooling themselves off in a puddle which was cool they suck up the water using their trunks then sort of fling it back over themselves to cool off.

We saw loads of baboons on the drive too they carry the babies around either underneath or on top of them.

Wewent for a game drive in the serengeti the next day and saw huge herds of zebra and wilderbeast (note the 'wilderbeast' I put a picture of before is actually a buffalo!) apparently they stick together to try and avoid predators.

We went for a game drive that afternoon / evening and saw loads of animals including a leopard which only left the rhino to see and then we'd done the big 5. I managed to catch another yawning hippo as the sun was setting which is probably one of my best pictures so far!

we got to the serengeti and headed up a viewing point to see the vast plains. The serengeti much bigger and more open than the massai mara.

On our way to the campsite we stopped off at a picnic spot which was home to load of kites which swooped down and stole the chicken we were eating so we had to run back to the van! while our drivers were sheltered under a tree laughing at us this bush pig came out of nowhere and ran at them which stopped their laughing. We hung around here for about half an hour in our van waiting and watching other unsuspecting groups being attacked by the kites!

From the massai mara in kenya we headed across the border to the serengeti in tanzania. Next to the serengeti is the ngorongoro crater which was formed when a mountain bigger than kili imploded and made a huge crater - it has all of the big 5 in it but no giraffes as they can't get up the steep sides. This is me chilling out on the rim of the crater.

So after the days game drive at the massai mara the day before we went for a morning drive. Although we didn't find the elusive rhino we did manage to help a trapped minibus out of a ditch! (its just in the background of this shot)

Between the massai mara and the serengeti we stayed at a place called snake park which had a very good bar! This is most of us at the bar so left to right there is: Jules, TJ (our tour leader), Paula, Me, Lauren (our other tour leader), Rob, Em, Rich (you can see a bit of his head!), Lauren, Ben (with the broom - he's my tent buddy!) and Harry. They're a really fun group!

We headed back to the camp for dinner and some drinks and then got an early night because we were up at 5:45 for a quick morning safari before heading off to Nairbi again! We didn't find the rhino we were looking for but we did get to see some more zebra! Thats it for now we headed back to Nairobi and then today we've driven from Kenya to Tanzania which has been a bumpy drive with the african roads but I'm loving every minute of it there's really nice people on the trip and africa is truely amazing - I'll try and write again soon.

We saw loads of other animals including ostriches, thompson gazelles, zebras and other birds and then on the back found a herd of wilderbeast. Wildebeast are number one of the list of the 'top 5' so named because they're the hardest animals to kill. They're hard to kill because of the horns, the thick bone above their head which makes killing them in one shot tricky and the fact that if you don't kill them with that one shot they get very angry that you're shooting at them!

There were loads of hippo chilling in the river and a couple of little ones playing but they kept going under so I didn't managed to catch a photo of them but here's a baby hippo with its mum. There were huge crocodiles too which were fairly lethargic in the midday sun.

We had a packed lunch under a tree in a part of the park whihc was supposed to be safe but give then bones under the tree it was pretty likely a leopard lived nearby! after that we headed along the Mara (the river which gives the park part of its name) and found hippos! I was amazed I managed to catch one yawning!

Then a shout over the radio came that baby cheetahs were sitting in a field with their mum so we headed cross country to go find them and found 6 cubs with their mum.

Just as we were heading to lunch we were told that lion cubs were along a river just by where we were so we turned the van around and headed in search of them. There were two lioness and about 4 cubs who were clearly trying to get their mum to play with them by nibbling her ear!

An elephant and its baby chilling out.

This was possibly the best find so far we found a pride of lion eating their prey which I think was an unfortunate wildebeest. Just incredible to see they were quite a way from the van so we all used binoculars to get a better look but it was amazing to watch as the male and female lion were eating it and then 6 cubs turned up to help them devoured their prey with vultures flying overhead. I have a video but it takes too long to upload it now so I've put on of the stills of when the male and female lion were eating before the cubs joined them - the lionesses are the ones that do the hunting.

Not sure of the name of this bird I think it may be the Kenyan national bird but I was so amazed by how clear the photo was it had to go in the blog!

After the safari we headed back to the campsite for some food and then stayed up drinking until the generator turned off at 10 when we headed to the camp fire to finish of our drinks - a guy from the trip called Ben had quite a few to drink and decided it was the right moment to crack out the recorder which he struggled to play but it was funny to watch! The next day we headed of on safari again, this elephant was ridiculously close to the van but I was reassured that they normally do a dummy charge at vehicles before a real one! Apparently elephants have a top speed of 50km/h but luckily this one was fairly chilled.

We were only on an afternnon safari so started to head back but on our way back spotted another cheetah hunting for food.

Another shot of the lioness.