gaze of the majestic Table Mountain which stands sentinel over the city,

dominaing the skyline.

Cape Town is 1 big party town, besides all the local Africans who party,

there are travellers arriving here every day either from overland tours or from the Garden Route and the clubs / pubs ae just heaving with tall blonde South African models - I have to keep apologising to Rach but that was all I saw.

Went White Water rafting on Zambezi, pic included, Rach is on front row with overly large helmet, I am at the front leading the way which generally meant bearing the full force of the rapids - bloomin great.

We left Vic Fall after visiting Bovu Island, a very quiet place that has

been created by several old hippies who left the UK in the 70's for a quiter life. There is basically nothing there except a bar, a restaurant of sorts and a few huts that you kip in. Very relaxing and you can make of it what you will. Only slight drawbacks are the 5inch moths which keep dive-bombing

you after 6pm - as dinner was at 7pm this meant they kept hitting you in the head, stunning themselves and then dropping into your plate of food. If you were lucky you saw then squirming in your gravy, if not you got an

interesting live addition to your next mouthful. Small pleasures though,

they used naked candles at the bar so several times they would commit

hari-kari and fly straight into the flame....

Of the 6 other people on the island, Rach knew 1 from work years previously

- small world and she won our bet for who would be the first to meet someone

we knew.......

After leaving Bovu to the insects we joined our Overland Tour with 24 other

travellers, mainly kiwi's and Aussies - great for the Rugby, rubbish for the

cricket - on the 23 tour down to Cape Town.

The tour was run by a married couple who were definitely running away from

something in the UK and NZ - she is one of these pushy mothering types -

most parts of your day were organised for you and everything had to be done

just so - if there was ever anyone in need of a good seeing to it was her,

but as they live together 24 hours every day, I doubt her hubby can be

bothered.

Besides that the tour was great, starting in Botswana, we went to the Etosha National Park and were introduced to the safari experience by having a bull elephant charge our safari bus, coming up 4 feet short of a collision that I doubt we would have won. These animals are just amazing and bloomin' huge - pictures really do not do them justice. Saw all the usual animals and were amazed at the other travellers blase attitude to the more common game such as Zebras, Antelopes and Giraffes - they had all been on the truck for 50-odd days and were only interested in the big cats - however our shouts of "Giraffe" and "Zebra" and excited shifts from one side of the truck were met

with little tutts and shakes of the head as if to admonish us for our

childlike glee....didn't care it was great.

Then onto Okavango Delta, which is where the Okavango River has decided not to flow out to the sea like every other river in th world, it just simply disappears below the Kalahari desert and in doing so creates a fauna and flora infested labyrinth of lakes and streams. The Aricans who live here know every waterway and lush pool and also act as guides across the vast

tracts of solid land. We went on several guided walks and got to within 20 feet of Elephant, Giraffe, Zebra and Hyena - which is cool if you are in a truck or car where all the animal sees and smells is the car but is

absolutely brilliant if you are on foot and the guide is visibly sweating

because he knows the elephant has seen us and is a bit spooked. Also

listening to lions roar as they make a kill in the early hours and then

tracking the pride the following day, seeing where the females hid and where

the kill took place, before seeing where the vultures were circling and

knowing where the feast was happening - didn't get too close to that one for

obvious reasons.

Then down into Namibia to the Etosha national Park, again doing game drives

and sittng up till 2am around a lit Waterhole watching 16 White Rhino coming to drink and threaten each other - and to see how scared every other animal is of the Rhino - moral of the story - Don't mess with a Rhino - ever!

After that we decided to do sand-boarding and a sky-dive at Swakupmund.

Sand-boarding is very cool - you basically lie on a tea tray and let

yourself fall down 45 degree slopes at up to 85km/hour - what a rush,

although landing after the jumps can be very painful in a graze your

testicles kind of way.

The sjy-dive was an altogether different matter. Rach an I went up with Fordy - mad Aussie girl who likes a beer and a laugh - and our tandem

sky-dive masters. It was a tiny plane and we were all crammed in, me

sitting beside the open sodding door as we climbed to 10,000 feet. The

views were just breathtaking, the Alantic ocean on one side, meeting th namib dune sea on the other and the various towns and villages sandwiched in between - all the roads were ramrod straight between the towns, like lines

of lattitude on a map very peaceful. Wen the tm came to jump, Rach was

very calm, which was strange as she had been VERY uptight and petrified

about the jump since I put her name down for it a couple of weeks

previously.

But when you were attached to the tandem-bloke and you eventually rolled

forward from the plane, it was beautiful. You only get the sensation of falling for the 1st couple of seconds as you literally plummet away from the plane and then you seem to simply hang in the air (actually you are travelling at 220km an hour) for 30 seconds before the rip cord is pulled (another hefty jerk around the groin area) and you float lazily down to land outside the sky-dive clubhouse to rapturous applause (well a mild clap anyway....) We both made it down safely, although 1 girl did got blown

about a mile off-course and came down in the local township and was promptly

asked for money by the locals.

Next stop was Sussesvlei (are you detecting the German undertones here), for some amazing sights of sand dunes. These are not your usual UK height,the

largest which we climbed for sunset was 200 metres. The colours of the dunes were a burnt orange colour - an amazing sight as the sun settled below the horizon. We managed a 4.30am start one morning to experience the sunrise and took far too may photos - prepare to be bored on our return with 101 shots of sandunes! However the best thing was running (I kid you not) down from the top of the dune, descending in 20 seconds and 10 big lolloping strides what had taken us an hour to climb. This was also dificult because we were all giggling like 5 year olds.

Since then we have made steady progress down to Cape Town, crossing borders and having to take everything off the truck as they searched for drugs and nearly getting arrsted as the previous owner of our locker had obviously had something dodgy in there and the sniffer dog was going ballistic trying to detect the hidden stash (nothing there fortunately, so we were allowed in)

Now we are in Cape Town and are just about to climb Table Mountain, which is a 2 hour stint, but the views are meant to be fantasic. Aso visited Robben Island yesterday where Nelson Mandella and other political prisoners were kept during the Apartheid years - a very humbling experience when you see the conditions in which they were kept and the punishments they would

receive for just talking out loud in their cells (even when asleep...!).

Still having a great time - tell us any news and xmas drinking stories -

more news as it happens......