Kuala Gandah elephant sanctuary

Yesterday I visited the Kuala Gandah elephant sanctuary. This is a place that I’ve heard many people raving about, but had never been to. My friend Kate had her sister’s family staying, so we had six excited children with us to make the trip worthwhile.

Unfortunately, there was no information given by the elephants’ keepers, although there may have been some on display somewhere. It all had something of a feel of a circus, with “Next activity, feeding the elephants!” announced over the PA system. The elephants were all chained to the ground by at least two of their ankles, with only a couple of inches of movement allowed. However, hand-feeding them with fruit proved a big hit with the children and the keepers kept an eye and showed the kids what to do.

The largest two elephants were then taken off to give rides to visitors, the keepers sitting on their necks steering by poking them in the backs of their heads with narrow metal sticks. This horrified me, as it is quite possible to lead such a tame elephant by a rope. The rides lasted all of about twenty seconds, but again the children were delighted, especially those who had never been here before.

The final activity proved a bit too daunting for all except Anna – riding an elephant into the river then being dumped into the water as it plunged for a swim or a roll. To keep Anna company, I joined in with this one, but to be honest, the highlight was swimming in the river rather than sitting on the poor elephant. All of the Anna’s brothers and cousins joined us and we spent a wonderful hour or so swimming and playing in the brown water of the jungle river.

My initial feeling was that this place was offering little to the elephants. However, a bit of research has shown me that the foundation is mainly concerned with removing elephants from areas where their natural habitat has been destroyed and transferring them to national parks and reserves. Unfortunately, this wasn’t made clear at the time. Nor was the future of the elephants who were resident at this sanctuary, seemingly with the sole purpose of entertaining tourists. It set me to thinking about the David Sheldrick elephant orphanage I visited near Nairobi. There, keepers stand with the animals, explaining how they look after them, how the programme of care changes as the elephants mature, how they are eventually released into reserves or a protected and limited (but large) area, in which they can live wild. Everyone loved watching the youngest being bottle fed and enjoyed looking in on the bedrooms where the keepers slept with them. I think there may have been an opportunity to pat the babies on their heads, but that was about it. Yet the place was teeming with visitors. It isn’t necessary to make a circus there. However, my real sadness was not from the activities at Kuala Gandah but from the way the elephants were chained, prodded and yanked about. Yes, I know this was essential for visitor safety, but without such close proximity it wouldn’t have been necessary at all.

The organisation’s website isn’t particularly endearing, as it rants about “the world's 10 BIGGEST CULPRITS that keep on warming up the fragile world and yet blames Malaysia for supposedly cutting down all the forests.” I had heard that a past volunteer had caused problems, but didn’t expect to see this on the website:
“all volunteering & internship opportunities have since been stopped for an indefinite period as a result of various problems caused by an insensitive, ignorant & " ugly " North American.” The authors are also at great pains to make us appreciate how “thankless” and dangerous the work of the sanctuary is. Too see more, take a look at http://www.myelephants.org/ .

I had a wonderful day out, thanks in great part to the company, but I would only recommend this to families with children. Adults might have to put their gut feelings aside, but it’s definitely better than a zoo and it's quite an experience to get so up close and personal with these amazing animals. I'm glad I went to see it for myself and very grateful to my lovely friends for taking me along.

The sanctuary was further than I expected from KL, but the last few kilometres were bliss, giving me a view of the Malaysia I love and have missed – the narrow roads winding through the lush greenery, wooden houses with children playing outside, the rich smells of the earth and leaves and flowers, fruits and fried things for sale at the roadside, insects chirruping, the warm humid air soft and sweet, enveloping us as we arrived.

A walk on the wild side

Crouched behind the knarly branches of a dead tree, we watched two lions stalking a warthog. Suddenly our guide said, "Elephants!" and reeling round we saw six elephants soundlessly walking straight towards us. The scout cocked his rifle while the guide directed us to another tree, only slightly closer to the lions and further from the elephants. We set off towards it at a brisk walking pace, hoiking Alex, who'd stopped to take photos, with us. The elephants steadily followed, thankfully showing no sign of agitation as each tree seemed to be somewhat inadequate for providing cover to four people. The elephants soon changed course and we left the area in the opposite direction. The lions had given up their hunt too.

It was our last morning in South Luangwa National Park. In two days we had been on three game drives, the highlight of which was two leopard sightings. We also saw plenty of elephants, buffalo, giraffe, hippos, genets and some fabulous birds.

South Luangwa is a large park, whose boundaries are formed by the escarpment and the Luangwa river, but no fences. We stayed in Flatdogs Camp, just across the river from the park, so we shared our camp with anything that could cross the river - mostly elephants. Guards were always on hand to walk us from one part of the camp to another after dark, magically appearing as soon as we stepped outside. The first night I was woken at 2am by the sound of an elephant tearing at a tree just feet from our netted window. Later, in the half-light of the early morning, we had to make a detour to avoid more elephants on the way to breakfast.

For anyone visiting Zambia, I can't recomment South Luangwa or Flatdogs camp enough. The park has a variety of habitats, plenty of water and more wildlife than you can shake a stick at. Fabulous.

This morning I waved Alex off as he set out towards Malawi on a thoroughly clapped out minibus and realized how much I was going to miss him. You couldn't find a better travel buddy - he's smart and funny and interesting and just a lovely person to hang out with. But my purpose holds to sail towards Uganda, so with happy memories and some sadness on my part, and hopefully not too much relief on his, we went our separate ways.
Next stop Lusaka!

A night in the Kalahari

Part three of my 'Wild dog' safari was Windhoek to Livingstone. The route took us quickly out of Namibia and into Botswana, and across the (somewhat grassy) Kalahari desert. We camped, coldly, near Ghanzi, and the next day drove on to the Okavango Delta.

It was interesting to see a different part of the delta. This time we were at the upstream end, to the North-West, where there were rivers rather than just streams. We slept in a proper camp and just further in to the delta by mokoro for a day trip. Again, we poled through reedy channels of ever-decreasing size. On an island we walked, ate the fruit of the baobab tree, and failed to see any animals at all. Of course it was still a fabulous day out, and I even learnt a couple of new trees. And slowly, slowly, I'm getting the hang of a few more birds!

On our little truck for this tour, the average age is about 79, which is, well, interesting. Four elderly Americans, who are the absolute epitomy of everything you expect from elderly American tourists. And one English woman of indeterminable age, but definitely one of those people who was over 50 at birth. She has one of those deepish penetrating very british voices, posh pronunciation with absolutely no social grace, and always sounds rather slow. A problem not helped by her habit of throwing totally unrelated comments into conversations, repeating her inanities endlessly and always, always, asking questions that had just been answered. And interrupting. She also had an amusing habit of getting lost in campsites, and even when right by the fire being unable to find her own tent out of the six that we had there. And then there was the issue with showers. We all made do with luke warm, cold, or no showers, but Carol had to moan on a daily basis about how long it had been since she'd been able to wash her hair. And ask everybody how hot the shower was, how long it was likely to remain hot (is there some way I can tell whether a shower that had hot water an hour ago will still have some now? Why did she think I had this power?) . When our guide told us that Livingstone would be expensive, he said "For example a burger and chips is about eight dollars," and immediately Carol piped up with: "Well I don't want a burger." I could go on... Luckily all us youngsters found that we could dissipate our irritation by having a giggle about it instead.

The elderly Americans: Herb videos everything, Anda loves everything, Zoltan's game for everything - even whitewater rafting. Eva is the perfect homely grandmother type - and quite the sweetest person you could ever meet. She has an interesting history too, having fled Hungary as a child in 1948 and eventually reached the States via Austria and Germany. In fact, she even crossed the mountains into Germany on foot and recalls running down the hillside. You can draw your own Sound of Music parallels here. Once in the states she lived for some time in an orphanage until the family was all sorted out (I got a bit lost at this point in the story) but all in all an amazing life.

I pity whoever has to watch Herb's video of shakily shot animals with a wonderful commentary which seems to involve him barking, for example, "Impala!" but nothing else. At one point he picked up a seed from the ground and filmed it on the palm of his hand for over a minute. He was also obsessed with checking the temperature with his watch's thermometer, insisting that it was "6 below" on a morning when clearly the dribbles of water in cups and half inch of water in a metal kettle left out all night in camp had completely refused to freeze. When I pointed out the unfrozen evidence and the fact that it certainly didn't feel that cold, he grunted and prodded his watch repeatedly while waving it in my face. I was moved to suggest that his watch might not be 100% accurate...

Also on our truck are two nice German girls and a lovely American guy, Alex. The Germans seemed good fun, great company and quite a laugh, but we never persuaded them out to a bar. Alex and I have been on a bit of a nightlife mission, hitting campsite bars whenever there is one, but generally we are the only people there - but the nights were about to get a little more exciting, so lets get back to the story...

After the delta we crossed back into Namibia (details of placenames may follow on editing) and spent the next couple of days driving East, into the Caprivi strip. The National Parks in this area were great, lots of elephants and so on. Impala.... Somewhere along the way we had a really good sighting of a honey badger, there were lots of lilac breasted rollers around, kori bustards, ground hornbills, in fact too many birds to mention...

There was a rather grim visit to a tourist, I mean traditional, village, with the obligatory demonstrations of basket making and dancing performed by people who looked as if they'd rather be anywhere else. A far cry from the wonderful trip to the Himba village last week.

Then we hit the border again and went back to Botswana. This flitting in and out is getting heavy on passport space! We camped near Kesane, at the same campsite where a couple of months ago I'd stayed with the overlanders. And like last time I went on the sunset game cruise on the Chobe river, and again marvelled at elephants. This time we also saw a huge raft of hippos, lots of buffalo and now I'm a birding geek, there was even more to get excited about. We met some nice people on the boat from another overland truck, who happily were staying at our campsite. So at last, Alex and I walked into a bar full of people and had a lively night! Hurrah. And guess what? They're all here in Livingstone too.

So, from Kasane to Livingstone... Kasane is only minutes from the border. After being stamped out of Botswana, a very short drive took us to the Zambezi where we waited for a spot on the little ferries plodding back and forth across the river. One get stuck, but was refloated by moving the trucks around. On the other side of the river, it was chaos. Multi-direction traffic, some aiming to cross to Botswana, but mostly stationary, a few stuck in the mud, most waiting for processing at the border post. Boys wandered around selling hard-boiled eggs, it was dirty and dusty and utterly peaceful in a disorderly haphazard, chaotic way. We queued for an hour or so to get passports stamped and visas sorted, but I loved it all - I was back in Africa.

The old brit looked horrified, the Americans unflustered, and Alex and I perked up with excitement - Namibia and South Africa are just too neat and tidy! Proper Africa and the end of the organized tour in sight....

We had a quick trip to see the Victoria Falls, which was great as I hadn't seen the Zambian side at all last time, but unfortunately there wasn't enough time to take the path down to the Boiling Pot or to hang out just enjoying the view for a while.

The evening went rather downhill with our guide getting drunk. Once drunk, he became very pushy, trying to get us to change our evening plans for dinner in town to suit his plans for more drinking in the campsite. Once we'd escaped, locking our valuables in the truck which he had assured us would be safe in the campsite, we ended up at a cheesy overpriced tourist trap restaurant, with lots of dancing by people scantily clad in grass skirts and bits of zebra skin. Then our guides turned up there. When we realized that the truck was now parked on some roadside in town, things got less friendly. Eventually, we got our things out of the truck, the guides got very aggressive, but eventually drove off. We decided to have just one more drink then go back to camp as nobody wanted to wander around town with their valuables. Luckily it was just us four young folk (yes, I know, but all things are relative!) as the oldies hadn't come out with us. The restaurant staff were quite understanding as we ran in and out in varying states of alarm and anger, generally trying to leave one person inside so it didn't look as if we were doing a runner. We crept back to our camp with some trepidation, saw the truck had made it and the guides had presumably gone to bed - a big sigh of relief. Alex and I leave the trip here, supposedly tomorrow, so today we looked for alternative accommodation for tonight, but Livingstone is bursting at the seams. The nice overlanders have offered to squeeze us into their tents for the night. Nothing like a bit of drama...

Northern Namibia

Of the three legs of my WildDog tour, this one stands out as the best, by a mile. There was less driving, more seeing and doing, some wonderful places and best of all the most lively, fun-loving, friendly group of people to travel with.

But I've had enough of writing for now, so I'll try posting some photos instead.
Surprise, surprise - that didn't work. Will try again at some point. Maybe.

EcoTraining, Karongwe Game Reserve

Four weeks sounded like a long time, but it turned out to be very little time in relation to the amount there was to learn. This was an entry level course, leading to FGASA level one guide qualification and/or EcoTraining’s own certificate in field guiding.

Days consisted of walks, drives, lectures, study (or volleyball) time and meals. On walks we learnt to identify trees (at least 33 of them), grasses (20!), animal tracks and dung, and, in theory, birds. I say ‘in theory’ because personally I struggled with this. Trees, even though most of them were mere shrubs, are somewhat larger and less likely to fly off, giving one a bit more of a sporting chance. On drives, we learnt about whatever was around, including more tracks and birds, while trying to find some elusive game. Learning manoeuvre the Landrover, brief our ‘guests’ and generally be a guide gave us all plenty of opportunities for amusing mistakes.



On our first morning, we came across a giraffe with a newborn calf, its umbilical chord still hanging long and fresh as it pottered about. That afternoon we tracked lions on foot and with the help of some vultures, found them. When the adult male gave us a verbal warning we slowly backed off, still watching, the sense of wonder and adrenaline adding up to a true feeling of awe.



Another highlight was watching a cheetah feeding on an impala. This cheetah had been hand-reared as a cub, so although fully rehabilitated into the wild, she was comfortable letting us come much closer to her than you would normally be able to. She was beautiful to watch. We saw how she had separated the stomach and intestines from the rest of the carcass, which she was eating. The stomach parts are eaten last, as their smell will attract more scavengers. The cheetah’s belly looked huge, so full of meat, and her face and jaws showed only the smallest traces of blood – such a tidy eater! The next morning we returned to the same spot and found her still there, finishing her last round of the meal, having managed not to lose her kill to the hyenas or anyone else during the night. We must have stayed with her for nearly an hour and even then it was hard to turn and walk away.

One morning as we set off on the vehicle, a hyena came walking towards us on the road, carrying what looked like a leg – of what, we weren’t sure. Her stomach showed that she’d already eaten well, and her teats that she had cubs. Clearly she was returning to her den to feed the cubs.

On drives when we saw nothing much, we still learnt plenty and this is what made the whole experience for me. By day, we followed tracks, by night we used a spotlight to search for the red reflection of nocturnal eyes. Our night-sightings were mostly bush babies, civets, jackals and hyena. One group saw a pangolin and at dusk one day we saw a beautiful honey-badger. And then there were the ‘near leopards’. For example, Rob’s:
“It’s a leopard. I don’t believe it. It’s a bloody leopard!” (a civet)
and Phil’s:
“Woh. Woh wohh wohh wohh wohh! “ (a bush)
As you may have realized, Leopards were our most sought-after and elusive animal. Sadly, we never did see one, although one ran in front of the vehicle as Theuns and Lizzie set off to pick up food one day.

There were impala aplenty, regular kudu, bushbuck, warthogs, giraffe and hippos. Occasional white rhino, elephants, crocodiles and lions. And of course birds. Did I mention the birds?

Sometime during the second week I became aware that when I closed my eyes, I saw trees. Well, leaves really. We seemed to spend a lot of time learning, then being tested on, trees. Notebooks allowed, tests were still tense with nervous excitement (well, nearly). Theun’s method involved lengthy lists of trees (“was this one over here number eight?”) whose names had to be written down – no fun on cold mornings when the fingers were too cold to hold the pen that had frozen and wouldn’t write anyway. With Rob the angst was dished up differently – whisper the tree and be sent to stand here or there depending on what you had said. Once everyone had answered, one group would be told they’d been right. And just to mess with our minds, Rob liked to send one person who was right to stand all alone, even when they were right, along with the others.

The same range of methods were also applied to learning tracks, poos and grasses. The whole business of tracking was fascinating, but not easy. Middens and scrape marks weren’t too bad, nor was digging your fingers into rhino dung to see whether it was still warm. And I’m not sure that an impala dung spitting contest was strictly necessary, but I imagine that after that we were all pretty sure what an impala pellet looked like.

Our lectures ranged from Ecology, Geology and Birds to the inner workings of a Landrover, by way of Mammals, Tracking and Conservation Management… the list goes on. One day we had firearm theory, which reminded me of “Today we have naming of parts” – who wrote that? The shooting was more fun, especially as Doreen, who’d never held a gun before, turned out to be the best shot in the group, earning herself the title of ‘silent assassin’.

Then there were the tests. For EcoTraining there were three tests, spread through the four weeks. In the final week there was also a lengthy field test which involved naming trees, listing their uses, naming grasses, tracks, poo and even rocks. And of course bird calls (“what?”) and birds (“where?”). Twice we had to give presentations to the rest of the group on subjects we’d chosen and researched, and of course this too was assessed. The much-hyped FGASA exam was almost a relief compared to Rob’s tests, being slightly easier and very much shorter. This test had a 75% pass mark, which if achieved qualified one for a FGASA practical assessment. This also doubled as EcoTraining’s practical, but those unfortunate enough to have just missed the 75% had to do a purely EcoTraining practical, which turned out too be much harder as well as more nerve-wracking, as it came in the form of a one-on-one with Rob. On FGASA drives one got a vehicle full of fellow students posing as guests, with the assessor sitting in the back corner. I think we were all agreed that it made a huge difference not only having ‘guests’ to talk to, but also knowing that they were all rooting for you. More on the assessment drive later…


The Camp

A normal day started with a six o’clock wake up, a quick cup of tea and then a three hour walk or drive. On returning to camp we had a huge hearty breakfast, followed by a lecture. After this was study time, volleyball or relaxation, followed by tea at three o’clock. Then there was either a two hour walk or a three and a half hour drive, followed by dinner and campfire and more study or relaxation time.

There were twenty students on the course, with two and a half instructors (one left halfway through, but Rob and Garth managed to put up with us to the end), so we were split into two or three groups for walks and drives. We had a good mixture of ages and of foreigners and South Africans, exam-takers and just-here-for-fun folk. There was no-one not to like and we all got on pretty well. Evenings round the campfire were always fun, not only thanks to Phil’s inexhaustible humour and Garth’s wicked joke-telling, but also because there were just so many interesting people.

Accommodation was in large tents – with real beds – but after a week I moved out to sleep on the deck. There were three decks, built around a huge central fireplace and a fourth building housing showers and the kitchen, and Rob’s place above. One deck was our classroom/dining room and the other two were for sleeping. Although colder than a tent, it was a great place to sleep, offering night-time wildlife viewing opportunities as well as proximity to essential facilities. Hyenas were frequent night visitors to the camp, sometimes running off with bags or clothing that had been left around. Other animals seemed quite happy to wander close by, so late night loo trips always had an edge of anticipation to them.


The Sleep-out

One night we slept out in the reserve, beneath the stars. Ignoring all the advice they’d given us during the bushcamping lecture, our instructors (sorry, trainers,) took us to a carefully selected site in a riverbed, where we built a huge fire. Leona dug us a terrifying toilet, dinner was cooked on the fire and sleeping bags were rolled out. We took turns to keep watch through the night on instructions not to wake up the instructors for anything non life-threatening – “You can scare off hyenas yourselves”. I was lucky enough to draw an early watch, the only difficulty being identifying and learning to ignore each new grunting or snoring sound as another person fell asleep. After handing over our watch, I snuggled down to enjoy the show. I didn’t want to sleep – it seemed such a waste to lie sleeping with such a beautiful wonderful night all around me. I watched the enormous constellation of Scorpio slowly arc overhead, in between gazing in wonder at the Milky Way and rolling over occasionally to lose my thoughts in the fire. In the morning, drinking tea by the fire, I ached with the joy of being there and the sadness that this was not my real life.

The highs and lows

The highs were many – every drive, walk, lecture, every starry night and evening fire, every cold morning had something to make me pause and wonder, smile. The low was knowing that this was only some sort of dream – what are my chances of ever living this life? And how could I ever know enough? Be good enough? There were times of huge frustration and disappointment in myself. I wasn’t going to do the practical – didn’t think I could – but after being a guest on other people’s assessment drives, I decided to give it a go. So if nothing else, I overcame my fear of failure enough to try. That should give me some satisfaction, but it doesn’t. I passed exams and assessments, but on a personal level I didn’t pass a thing. Rob asked me if I’d ever believed in myself, and I thought no, but only later did I realize or remember how I used to be, just a couple of years ago. Although there should have been little time for it, there was a lot of opportunity for introspection and reflection. But of course no answer to the big question – can I ever be the person I want to be?

On a cheerier note: the ultimate warm fuzzy feeling was Rhodes putting his arms around me and saying "I'm proud of you".

Also warm and fuzzy - but this time, literally - was Rob pulling my beanie down over my face every time he passed by.

Other things that make me smile to remember:

• Everyone whistling the French national anthem as Alex drove us off into the night (and a rock),
• Carole and her obsession with Amarula
• Sarah hopping up to the vehicle in her sleeping bag - and getting in,
• The study group that disintegrated into a rowdy quiz-show,
• Alex's presentation on the 'orny plates of the pangolin (imaginez s.v.p. un accent francais tres fort)
• Leona telling me I should be a safari,
• Phil trying not to feed his legs to a lion, and trying not to look worried.
• Actually, Phil at all times.
• The night drive where we spent ages star-gazing with Garth
• Andi singing "hey mr karongwe" (actually, I'm not convinced, but it was funny at the time)
• The lion chasing the vehicle, Garth saying "Stop!" then seeing the lion and changing his mind, "Go!Go!"
• Michael identifying a grey heron as a black-headed oriole, without a moment's doubt, a hint of a smile, or any embarrassment. Calmly confident, I'd say.
• All those visions of virility on the volleyball court (eat your heart out, Denise)
• Matt singing
• Andi and Äneri (no further comment - minors read this)
• Carl's obsession with the black mamba
• What was Sarah carving from that piece of wood?
• Dorinne's giggle, and jokes, and animal spotting
• The flying spaghetti monster
• Cliff and Phil and Matt, getting me through that drive...

no doubt more will follow as I remember

The assessment drive
(coming soon!)

Okavango Delta

From Chobe to Maun was a longish and not very interesting drive. We camped near Maun - a cold night - before setting off by dugout canoe into the Okavango Delta. Here the Okavango river disperses five and a bit parts and hundreds of narrow channels. Little, if any, of the water flows on from here.

We were poled along in our canoes by local guides, following narrow channels between tall reeds. We set up camp near a small pool, and happily whiled away a couple of days. We went on a short walk on the first evening and a longer one the following morning. There were hippos and elephants, a couple of zebra and some antelope. I spotted a small snake which turned out to be a baby puff adder. It was an idyllic bushcamp, with nothing to do except sit around the fire, swim in the very refreshing water, or take a canoe for a punt. As the sun set a huge full moon rose on the opposite horizon.

I love the bushcamping. The simplicity of life. Using river water to wash and wash up. Having to strain water for tea through a shirt because it's so full of ash and bits of firewood...

Went for an exploratory canoe trip with Nick. Enjoyed punting us along, but enjoyed even more lying back in the canoe while he poled us back. Standing bare-chested in the stern, outlined by a perfect blue sky, he was quite the vision of youthful loveliness. Aah... Even better was his charming company. And don't worry - I'm not lusting after the dear young boy. Everytime it got too hot in the sun, we jumped into the water for a bracing cool-off. Back at camp, an elephant mooched about by our toilet hole.

The second evening, our guides took us for a "sunset cruise", which turned out to be a brief ride to a nice sunset viewing spot. Predictably, and prettily, the sun set. For the first time since arriving in Africa, mosquitoes came out to feed on me - so finally I hope to have got some use from my hundred pounds' worth of psychosis-inducing drugs.

Chobe National Park, Botswana

Went on an excellent morning game drive here as soon as we arrived. The park was full of dead trees, reaching up eerily above the bushy smaller trees and scrub. Botswana has a non-culling policy, so the growing elephant population has done great damage. But as our guide said, "nature will take care of it."

Not surprisingly, we saw lots of elephants. Also kudu and a sable and a baby crocodile. There were marshall eagles and fish eagles and lots of pretty little birds I can't name. The Chobe river is still in flood, so there was plenty of water to add variety to the scenic wonders of the park. It was hard to tell which was the river and what was just flood-plain, but in amongst it all were some distant crocs and hippos.

In the afternoon we returned to the park for a game cruise. Again there was lots to see and oodles of lush scenery to soak up. Most of all there were elephants. Hundreds of them. All along the bank we saw groups coming down to drink from the river. Adults tried to shield babies. Babies suddenly shot off in a wobbly galloping toddle. And gradually the golden tones of sunset gave everything a wonderful warm glow.

A fabulous day. (Yes, another one!) A beautiful park, with so much to see. Only limits of time stop me waxing on...

Back at the campsite, I spent a very pleasant evening with a dashing (well, rather appealing) Afrikaaner called Willie :) Do all these Afrikaaners look as if they're warming up on the touchline and about to spring into action, or is it just the ones I've been meeting?