still in africa

as i sit here writing this entry, i am suffering from very bad sunburnt feet, after a day beach fishing yesterday(saturday 19th)with mr harding which entailed going down the side of a 150ft sand dune and a 2k plus walk to a spot tony thought looked good!!!!!!!!!!!!. why we couldnt fish straight in front of the carpark is beyond me as the sea all looks the same, we were joined by tony,s team mate ryan who seems to carry to much kit, but what do i know.enough to say that ryan outfished tony and myself taking 2 double figure (kg) smooth hounds , a nice cob of about 8lb which he gave us a side of(nice man) and 1 sand shark, i had 5 sandies whilst my host had only 3 meaning he was last, but he got his own back as we had to walk back through what was now soft sand as the tide was coming in then up the 150 ft dune to the car, all this in 30c temps to say i could hardly move when i got back to the house was an uderstatement, long walks in soft sand dont suite me, not when you are used to gravel paths and no hills lol.
judith and me went to the addo elephant and game park for a couple of days last week, we got there on the thurs and had a drive round seeing ele,s , kudu, buffalo,a mongoose, zebras and lots of other things. we had a self catering cottage overlooking a floodlit waterhole which was nice, so we spent the evening drinking wine and eating steaks and chops that i had masterfully prepared on the braii (african for barbie). we did have a few elephants come down for a drink but it was generally quiet, so it was an early night as we wanted to be up early as the park gates open at 6 and we wanted to be early in as you tend to see more, so up and at the gates for 6 and we were the first there, which wasnt a surprise as it was hammering down and the roads were already awash,after an hour of driving round and only seeing 5 elephants and a couple of kudu we decided to go and have some brekkie and reasess the situation because by now the whole park had become a river and even the animals were refusing to come out, but we did see a lot of african landsnails, and some huge eathworms up to a metre long crawling across the roads.
after brekkie we decided to knock it in the head as it was still pouring, but then the fun began as the exit road had been flooded and become impassable to small vehicles, a quick chat in reception and we were told that the other exit in the south of the park would be ok to leave by, maybe it was but halfway through the 38k drive our path was blocked by another flooded road, so we turned around and went back to the main gate and sat it out hoping the levels would drop enough for us to escape, luckily they did and we managed to get the little renault through the floods at 11.45, then all we had was the 4 hour drive back to tony and bard,s.
i,ve got to say that the country is lovely and the people are friendly so i dont think it deserves all the bad press it gets, as usual its a very small minority making it bad for the majority,
tony and barb are looking after us well as you would expect and they are both thriving well on the lifestyle out here.
we are off for a few days sightseeing to a place called ootsdoorn(something like that)and up through a mountain pass to a place called prince albert it all sounds very nice, then it will be time to think about coming home, i hope it warms up a bit over there.
i understand dean did a good job running the landsend lge for me but he does wonder how i put up with the moaners.