Monday 1st January - New Years Day

We travel to Antelope Park near Gweru. They have a large lion breeding programme here and there are loads of activities to do. As usual the very large rain cloud that follows us around has also come here too. Hopefully it'll clear up as the owners daughter is getting married here in 2 days time.

Tuesday 2nd January

Kate and I sorted out our locker on the truck today - quite theraputic to go through everything and get organised again. When you are on the move so much you have a tendency to just throw stuff in your backpack and it gets in a bit of a mess.

I went on a elephant ride today and my guide was called Reason. It was lovely - majestic, smooth - I felt elated. The elephants have such personalities. They would wander along and pick things up and hand them to us. Very funny.

My elephant was called Amai - which means Old Mother. I talked to Reason about Bulawayo - the next stop on our list. He warned me that it could be difficult for us Mzungu. People trying to rip you off or steal from you.

We also learned about the story of how the owner lost his arm. He went to say hello to one of the male lions in his cage but didn't know that a wild female had been put in there with her that day so when he put his fingers through the fencing she pulled his arm through and bit down and wouldn't let go. The force of this peeled his skin back from his arm like a banana and also broke his ribs which punctured his lung.

He passed out at this stage, and when help came, she wouldn't let go of him. So they had to distract her by fizzing coke up her nostrils! Did I mention I was going walking with lions later on today? Hmmm!

Kate went out on a horseback safari - I'm booked on one tomorrow. How exciting. The saddles are different to those in the UK. They were invented for the civil war so have a high pommel at the front and the middle section is cut out with no padding.

Walking with lions was one of the most scary but incredible things I've ever done. The lions were still called cubs although you'll see from the photo's that they were hardly small. They were around 2 years old, but would double in size by the time they were 4. They allow you to walk with the lions until they are around this age, at which stage they get too big to be handled. Apparently they view us as part of their pride. And like cats, we had to take sticks to distract them incase they decided they wanted to play with us!

When you go up to stroke them you have to sit right next to their back otherwise they roll over on you and want to play. I had my photo taken with 1 of the females and also stood under a tree with a lion above me and one of the ground.

The owner isn't quite sure how long the park will still be in existence for as they keep getting threatened by large gangs of men who the government keep sending to take it away from them and give it back to the blacks. It's a real shame as they are doing some amazing work to grow the lion population again and release them into the wild. The only thing that's stopped the park from being taken just yet is the owner keeps threatening to release the lions whenever the men appear!

Wednesday 3rd January

The horseback safari was wonderful - you can get up so close to the animals as they just see you as part of the horse. There were only 3 of us - me, Lindsay and Maz plus the guide. We got up so close to 9 giraffe including one baby - I was ecstatic. The ride was lovely too - very tranquil just wandering around the game park.