We were picked up in some open safari trucks with trailers on the back for our bags, tents, food, etc. for the three-hour drive into the Okavango Delta. At one point during the drive I saw some little creatures (maybe meerkats) run across the road in front of us. It was a pretty hairy drive on dirt tracks with frequent flooded sections, one of which our truck got stuck in and was tipping precariously to one side (which of course was where I was sitting, freaking out), another truck drove right up beside us, actually touching ours, to prevent ours from toppling over while it was trying to get out!

After all that drama I was delighted to get out of the truck for a relaxing hour-and-a-half journey in the sunshine along the narrow canals through the reeds and water lillies to get to the area where we would pitch our tents for the night. We travelled on a mokoro - a narrow wooden boat carved from the trunk of the sausage tree, which is pushed along the shallow canals by someone standing at the back with a long pole (similar to punting in Cambridge). They put lots of reeds inside the mokoro to sit on as the bottom of the boat is likely to get wet. Our 'poler' was called Matt, he was 22 and had been doing this for seven years.

Just before we disembarked the mokoro we saw three hippos close to us in the canal, the polers wouldn't go too close because hippos are very dangerous but they were remarkable to watch.

We camped in a clearing among some trees - there was nothing separating us from the wild animals there so some of the polers had to stay up by the fire all night to keep watch for creatures that might wander into the area. They dug a hole among the trees for us to use as a toilet.

We had a guided walk around the area in the late afternoon - there were lots of huuuge ant hills around and we saw some elephant bones and lots of animals - a warthog, a young male elephant, impala, lots of birds and lots of hippos in a lagoon. The hippos stay in the water when it's very hot during the day and then they come out at night when it's a bit cooler to graze. They are funny because most of the time the only part of them that can been seen is their little ears and eyes sticking up above the surface of the water - it's hard to believe the huge bodies hiding under the water. Occasionally they have a massive yawn and expose their enormous jaws and odd teeth. Our guide, Phillip, told us what to do if we were charged by an elephant or lion - apparently he has been many times!

When we got back from the walk Sammy had prepared cottage pie for us and the polers had caught a bunch of fish for their dinner. It was the 60th birthday of Peter in our group so his wife, Jeanne, had manage to pack several bottles of champagne in the cool box for everyone to celebrate while Sammy had cooked an amazing chocolate sponge cake over the fire - what a great way to spend your 60th - I hope I'll be doing something as fun as that on my 60th birthday!

Later the polers got together and performed lots of songs and dances for us around the camp fire - they were fantastic! I was so impressed, they had obviously practised a lot (I wish I could have videoed them but it was too dark). There was one guy in particular who loved dancing and was really getting into it. We particularly enjoyed the 'frog song' where the men got down on their honkers and danced like frogs with their bums in the air while making frog noises. We tried to reciprocate with some sing-a-long songs but we were pretty poor by comparison, apart from one of our group, Jordon, who had brought a guitar with him and was able to play and sing a few songs. It was such a fun evening!

At 5:30am the next morning we went for another walk during which we saw giraffe, zebras, warthogs, a honey badger, storks, steenbok (tiny antelope that run very fast) and a bird that made a funny noise that sounded like 'whaaat, whyyy, whaaat, whyyy...'.

After breakfast we packed up the tents (avoiding the various insects, spiders, scorpions and frogs that had decided to take up residence on, under and around them!), and then had another very relaxing trip in the mokoro, back to the point where the trucks could pick us up. Nicky and Sammy had a go at poling - it looked pretty difficult!

The drive back to Maun wasn't as traumatic as the way there because the sun had dried up many of the flooded patches of the road and we took a slightly different route which didn't involve being whacked by thorny branches so much. Along the way we saw two more elephants, lots more storks, a few ostriches (including a couple - the female ones are brown and the male ones are black). We passed through some villages that are so far away from shops and amenities; many of the houses look like little huts with thatched roofs, even the modern concrete ones are still tiny.