We spent a lot of time in Malawi thinking "this would all be so much easier if we had our own transport". Well now we do! It is rather swanky transport too, a great big Toyota Hilux 4x4 with extended range fuel tanks, a fridge, and tents with mattresses which fold out of the roof. If only D of E had been like this.

Anyway, we picked the car up in Kasane in Northern Botswana on the 13th of September. Since then, our trip (in a nutshell) has taken us through various wildlife parks and round the Okavango Delta, up into Namibia, through Etosha National Park, and south into increasingly bizarre desert. I've become adept at digging the car out of sand (twice), reversing at high speeds away from territorial elephants (three times), and wading about in rivers trying to find the best crossing point (many times). It has all been quite an adventure. There is lots to write about but I will try to keep things brief.

Botswana has consciously set itself up as an exclusive tourist destination, and has no budget accommodation. The only way to visit is to splurge serious money (as in £1,000+ per night) on a lodge with a private airstrip, or drive in with a 4x4 and get a place in the very limited campsites. We booked 6 months ago and were lucky to get sites!

These campsites are not gated, so all wildlife can wander in and out. This means that you have to be really careful at night (people have been attacked by hyenas and leopards), and even when chilling out in the afternoon, you need to keep an eye out. On one afternoon we were visited by a couple of elephants. While we took cover in the car, they pushed the barbecue over, destroyed a tree, did a big poo and then wandered off. Elephants are in fact perceived to be quite a nuisance in certain areas - at one of the camps they have had to build an elephant proof fortress round the ablutions block after the last one was demolished by elephants who liked to drink the running water from showers whilst people were inside!

We are definitely glad we chose the self drive option (and not only because we can't afford the lodges) as there is a nice atmosphere among self-drive people in Botswana. When passing a car coming the other way along a track, it is common to share tips and notable sightings. However, everyone has their own standards as to what constitutes "notable". I caught myself rolling my eyes when I was informed that there were "some buffalo ahead if you turn left". Equally, on another occasion, we found a side-striped jackal (which according to our book is actually pretty rare), only to be told "Ahh Jah, we see lots off those" by the first guys we came across.

As well as the animal sightings, the Okavango delta is a really interesting place as one of the only inland deltas in the world. The Okavango River flows from Angola, and spews out into a huge plain, forming swamps, streams and islands in the middle of the Botswana dry season. This brings animals from all across the continent to drink when there is very little water elsewhere. The area is so flat that certain areas will either fill with water or not depending on tiny tectonic movements. One of the areas where we camped (the Savuti Channel) had been dry for 20 years up until about 2006, then seemingly randomly started flowing again - this made some of the maps a little useless as the old dry riverbed had been used as a road and did confuse us to start with!

A few quick learnings:

· Driving in deep sand is not fun, but much less painful in the early morning when the sand is firmer, and if you do get stuck, it is a little bit less extremely hot when you dig yourself out.

· Packing the shovel underneath all the firewood, drinking water, chairs and cooking equipment in the back of the truck when you set out on a big drive is a silly thing to do.

· Driving over day-old (old enough to harden, not old enough to crumble) elephant dung is like hitting a speed bump too fast.

· A professional guide driving flat out in a in a fully pimped out land cruiser safari vehicle is very difficult, but very rewarding, to keep up with. It is the best way to spot wildlife, since they have probably had a tip-off on the radio that something interesting has been seen.

· Being able to see a leopard far away on the other side of a 1.5m deep water crossing (windscreen level on the guide's vehicles, too deep for our car) is very frustrating! Being told by a passing American tourist how magnificent it is doesn't help.

· When the insects come out at night, it is possible to put up a rooftop tent incredibly quickly (less than 2min).

· Botswana gets seriously hot at this time of year. Our usb powered personal fan thingies (£5 each on Amazon!) turned out to be one of the best things we took with us.

During our time in Botswana we saw all sorts of wildlife (and have uploaded a shedload of photos to prove it)! The highlight was probably watching a lion pride a few metres from our vehicle where a mother called her cubs out of the grass to come to feed. They ran, tripping over their big feet, very excited to feed. It was lovely to watch.

Once out of the wilderness, we took a scenic flight over the delta (just two of us and the pilot), which gave a very different perspective (and allowed us to spot some animals from above).

Into Namibia and Etosha was much less adventurous than Botswana. Each camp (fenced, with petrol stations, swimming pool and restaurants, like little Center Parcs!) has a waterhole, which is floodlit at night and this provides the opportunity to see some very different behaviour. On our last night, we stayed up until 3am, equipped with sleeping bags (unlike Botswana, it gets cold in the desert at night), a few beers (assured that "the more you drink, the more you'll see"), and chocolate (because we are worth it). Throughout the whole night there was always something going on in front of us - rhinos having an argument about something, lions coming along to have a good roar, and bit of a drink, another roar and then walk off, and a couple of very romantic elephants. And endless jackals. Maybe they weren't so rare after all.

While driving down Namibia, (which is a whole lot of driving), we have visited a cheetah farm (highly recommended, especially given that we were considering doing something similar near Victoria Falls which cost silly money in comparison), and seen some really crazy desert landscape and wildlife (including the "little 5" critters which live in the dunes - transparent geckos, sand diving lizards, chameleons, sidewinder snakes, and strange white spiders).

We are now in Swakopmund, which is bizarre. It is basically a traditional German town with beer houses and bratwurst, with desert plains to the north, uranium mines to the east, vast dunes to the south and the (very cold, very rough) Atlantic ocean to the west. Our campsite has lovely hot showers and we just got laundry done. As a result we are in a very good mood!

We now have about a week left to get down to Cape Town, and then wave a sad goodbye to the Hilux (I've developed a Top-Gear style love for it)…