hello everybody... sorry yesterdays was very long! this will be shorter i promise: the 5.30 AM start: i managed can you believe it and was ready packed and loaded on the bus by 6.30 when the gates open. today was basically to be a game drive day... we all piled into the little bus we have and set off round the park. there isnt much to say except about all the animalswe saw and lunch. i'll start with the lunch: sooooo nice... it was in this gorgeous place, called hilali and we got magnums mmmmmmmm and ate them by the pool tops and trousers rolled up, legs dipped in the water... was DIVINE!... on to the animals! this is just what i jotted down in order of how we saw them and some little extras gray told us: springbok and zebra - saw looooooooooooads kori bustard - largest land bird apparently with a wing span of over 2 metres. red hartebeast - the fastest antelope in the world... can run upto 35 km/hr martial eagle female ostrich - their brains are smaller thank 1 of their eyeballs. and as far as theyre colouring is concerned it is for this reason: they mate for life and the females sit on the eggs during the day and the males at night therefore the colouring makes sense! also apparently if they attack you the best thing is to hold a stick higher than their heads as it scares them away. girraffe - very elegant, apparently get darker with age. egyptian geese ground squirrels - apparently have massive balls. we unfortunately only saw females lol impala (black faced) - excl to namibia wilderbeast secretary bird - the tallest bird of prey: feeds on scorpions/snakes etc. has a v strong strike out with feet and very thick skin there for protection. elephants - we saw LOADS: was amazing!!!!! about 5 walked past right by the truck and i mean about a foot away seriously - god they are the most awesome animals ever!! most of these ones have small or broken tusks cos although there is lots of calcium in the area there isnt a lot of phosphate. we later saw some by a waterhole. so amaing - must've been about 30+ (and i'm not exaggerating). there was this tiny baby and you know what i'm like: couldnt stop going AAAAAAAAAW. gray told us a fact i never knew: elephants are the only animals with sexual organs in there feet.... its true... if they step on you your f***ed! hee hee ;o) lions - very far away but there they were never the less, all crouched down. could barely see them but saw 2 heads moving around and then 1 male head standing proud. now that was cool! so now we've come back to a different set of the same kinda lodges and we're just chilling out, will probably have another braai for dinner - cant wait! so yeh all in all a great day! night night lots of hugs and misses m xxxxxx