Now it may come as a bit of a shock to all those who know me, and indeed David, but we went on a 4 day trip to Kruger National Park. Yes, the 2 people in the world who least like animals voluntarily opted, nay paid, to sit on a safari jeep and spot wild animals in their natural environment.

I would like to say that it was a thrilling experience, and I suppose if I edit the trip down into a kind of one hour special in my mind, then it was pretty good. But I don't think that either of us, or indeed 98% of our travelling companions, went into this experience with our eyes wide open. I envisaged a short morning drive, a leisurely lunch and an equally short afternoon stint but reality was somewhat different from this daydream! The safari commenced at 6.30am and ended at 5pm, so that would be 10.5 hours of animal spotting, unless of course you were lucky(?) enough to be doing a sunset safari in which case it ended at 8pm, a whopping 13.5 hours of animal spotting! The one good thing is that David managed to catch up on a lot of his sleep whilst on this safari - see there's always a silver lining!

Throughout the 2.5 days of cruising around the park we saw quite a few animals (though not as many as usual due to the inclement weather). We saw giraffes, coodoo's, zebras, blue widebeests, warthogs, buffalos, rhinos, impalas, hyenas, lions and hippos. We saw 4 of the big 5 though the leopard continued to allude us throughout the trip.

Our sunset drive wasn't quite as successful as our daytime drive. The weather had gradually deteriated during the day to the point that, by 5pm when we set off, it was raining, cold and windy. We were advised by our guide at the outset, that it was highly unlikely we would see any animals because of the weather. So after one hour of not seeing any animals but getting progressively colder and colder I, as spokesperson for the group, approached the guide and suggested that it may be better all round if we abandoned the drive and headed home. I don't think he quite understood me though as he just smiled and carried on driving. It came as quite a surprise 20 minutes later when David suddenly yelled "MATE ARE WE HEADING HOME YET?". Again I'm not fully sure he understood David's special Yorkshire accent, especially when, with a perplexed look on his face, he repeated "Are we eating?" We all just sank into our seats, pulled our blankets up higher and left him to it, driving at 1mph, scanning the bush with his torch for non existent animals all sensible enough to seek shelter - UNLIKE US!!!

Another interesting aspect of our trip was our guide. We had a number of chats over the 4 days comparing our different cultures. So this is what I've ascertained - men can take more than one wife, couples can hold hands in public but can't kiss (allegedly men only do this with their mistresses), men can't have female friends and certainly would never go travelling with them! During one conversation I was explaining how through education and financial independence women in the UK now have more choice about marriage and childbearing. Our guide agreed and said that men in South Africa could also now choose to marry later because of the ready supply of prostitutes available to them - OK!!