Things I have learned so far on my travels:
- That nonchalently taking spices through customs at Sydney airport is a bad idea.
- That sanitiser gel (the type you get in hospitals) is the best invention ever.
- That I can sleep pretty much anywhere, and in any position.
- That you can never see too many zebras.
- That I should have changed my passport picture before I left home (greeting every customs official with "yes, unfortunately that is me" is never a good start...)
- Never to take a flushing toilet for granted ever again.
- To appreciate toilet roll.
- To never underestimate an elephant (we were casually having our photo taken in front of a couple of elephants the other day who were the other side of a barbed wire fence, this was until our guide pointed out that to the elephant it was not a fence, merely a small collection of twigs).
- That Swedish people like being naked and one must learn to accept this.
- That jet lag really is as difficult to overcome as everyone says it is.
- That lie-in's don't exist in hostels.
- That I have many things to learn...

Our Africa experience officially ended today, as Kirsty and I took our last malaria tablet at lunchtime. I'm not going to pretend I'm going to miss swallowing two pound coins on a daily basis, but I am sad that Africa is effectively done and dusted. It was such a fantastic tour, and even though in retrospect it probably was a bit of an expensive way to begin a round the world trip, I wouldn't change a second of it. The last couple of weeks of the tour, where we continued from Zambia down through Botswana and into South Africa, was a steady journey back into civilisation, ultimately marked by a huge MacDonalds close to the South African border. It would have been depressing were it not for the reintroduction of flushing toilets and diet coke into our lives!

The highlight of our last week on the Acacia truck should have been the Kruger National Park, and to a certain extent it was, largely as a result of a fantastic night time game drive we did the evening that we got there, but it also seriously highlighted how spoilt we'd been on our game drives in Kenya and Tanzania up until then. Whereas the Masai Mara barely had dirt tracks, for example, the Kruger had tarmac roads; whereas the best souvenir you could get of the Serengeti was a photo of the sunrise, the Kruger had a fully stocked gift shop and restaurant in its centre; and whereas the drivers in the Masai Mara gabbled away to each other on walkie-talkies trying to locate the big five, the Kruger pretty much had signposts. It sounds awful to suggest that the Kruger National Park, the largest game reserve in Africa, could be a disappointment, but to the group that saw four of the big five on their first day on the continent, a cheetah kill and the aftermath of a lion kill, it kind of was. It certainly didn't stop us enjoying the last part of our trip though, and before we got to South Africa we had a fantastic few days in Botswana where we were swimming in a pool at a campsite no more than 50m away from two elephants bathing in their own watering hole. We also went on a morning bush walk, which began with our guide inspecting our shoes and announcing "it's ok, you don't have to be able to out-run a lion, you just have to be able to out-run at least one other person in this group...". Right on cue everyone begins looking at each other nervously, sizing up their potential sprinting ability. As one of the few girls in the group, and having not done any exercise in several months, I immediately began to sweat... In the end, however, there was no running required and we spent the morning happily following elephant tracks and admiring the birdlife. In fact we saw one bird's nest which our guide got really quite excited about and described as "about as rare as seeing an elephant giving birth". I dutifully took a photo of it but I'm afraid one bird's next looks rather like another in my eyes!

Our month long journey from mud huts to MacDonalds finally ended in Johannesburg, where we stayed at our first hostel (it was reassuringly surrounded by a huge metal fence that even an elephant might have looked twice at) and had one final night out with some of the people we'd met along the way. We're hoping to meet up with a few of them at some stage over the next few months - particularly the ones who just happen to own houses with beds in them on the East coast of Australia! I already miss the Germans, whose difficulty with understanding and pronouncing certain elements of the English language kept us constantly amused... On one particular occasion I had my sarong tied round my head on one of the game drives in an attempt to stop my hair from blowing in my face and one of the German guys informed me that I looked like Yasser Arafat. Unfortunately I heard "you look like an elephant" and refused to speak to him for the rest of the day! Needless to say the two Irish guys we were travelling with were a complete mystery to the Germans... Christian summed it up one evening as he listened intently to one of the Irish guys telling a long story before casually saying at the end: "I'm afraid you lost me at 'hello'".

Our flights from Johannesburg to Sydney, and then from Sydney on to Christchurch the following day, went surprisingly smoothly (barring the spices incident). Kirsten met us at the airport in Christchurch which was great as it meant that after two days solid flying and with serious jet lag just beginning to kick in, we could just relax and let her show us around. The weather was a bit of a shock after the high temperatures of Africa (we were met with driving rain in Christchurch) but it cleared up after the first couple of days and we managed to find a sunny day to hire kayaks and have a paddle round the botanical gardens which was good fun. Then a couple of days ago we hopped on the kiwi bus for the first time which, after the horror stories we'd heard, actually turned out to be a fantastic way of getting around, finding accommodation, and getting discounts on activities, and now we're in Wellington! It's actually a lovely city, and completely justifies being the capital city of New Zealand if only for it's beautiful harbour (it looked even better to me today because it had rowing boats on it). Tomorrow we get back on the bus and head to Lake Taupo where Kirsty informs me she wants to fall out the side of a plane... I have yet to decide whether I'm going to join her! I think New Zealand may turn out to be little more than beautiful blur, just like Africa.