Daddy rescued a tortoise in the middle of the road and it peed on him!!

Then we did another national park called Namaqua Coastal Park. This park is supposed to be very pretty in the spring because of lots of wild flowers. But most of the flowers had finished. We drove right down to the water and got stuck in the sand. Mummy and Daddy had to dig us out. Then we saw a big seal colony. There were so many seals. They looked like fat slugs, and they were really smelly. Some of the photos weren’t very good because the sea fog was coming in.

After the park we did a wild camp by the beach. There were lots and lots of shells, so Vivi and I made shell shops.

Then we went to a Rooibos tea house. We saw a video on how they make tea. Then I tried some iced tea. It was yummy.

Then we went into the Cedarberg Wilderness Area. It was very mountainous, with lots of rock formations. We stayed at a camp and I went swimming in the river. It was very cold. Daddy went fishing and caught a small yellowfish. During dinner I saw a tortoise walk past! Vivi and I went running through a sprinkler because it was soooooo hot.

Then we went back to the coast. We went to Bird Island and learnt about guano – which is bird poo. They used to collect it to make fertiliser. But it is bad because it didn’t leave enough for the sea birds to lay their eggs in. We saw lots of gannets, but also saw two penguins. They had some skeletons in a museum and I liked one of a seagull and you could see the fish skeletons and bits of plastic in its tummy!

Then we went back to a campsite that we had stayed at before next to the Okavango River. We had to have our Bilharzia tablets. We had them just before bed. When Daddy woke up in the morning he felt a bit wobbly but the rest of us were fine.

Then we drove across the top of Namibia. It wasa a boring straight road, with lots of people on it. We had another slow leak in the tyre and Daddy had to keep stopping to fill it up with air. We stayed at Fantasia Lodge and it rained and rained all night! Then we stayed at a community camp and Vivi and I made a bow and arrow and throwing sticks.

After that we went back into Kaokoland. We drove along the border between Namibia and Angola. We stopped at the Dorsland Memorial for people who moved out of Angola into Namibia.

Then we went to visit a school at Ehomba. The school had 350 students and some of the children board there. Some of the children have to walk 20km just to get there! We saw their bedroom with lots of bunk beds. Some of the beds didn’t have mattresses, just a blanket. There were goats walking round the school too! We went into a classroom and had a photo with the children. They kept touching my hair. We gave them a netball for their sports tournament.

Then we drove to a painted dog sanctuary. There is a very good museum. There were 7 big paintings about an African wild dog called Eyespot. Each painting had a book under it that told you what was happening. Eyespot was a real dog! I learnt that dogs live in packs and there is an alpha male and an alpha female. The alpha is the leader and they are the only ones that have puppies. They use the den of an aardvark.  When some of the dogs go hunting, they come back and regurgitate their food for the puppies.  If a dog gets hurt, it doesn’t go hunting but it babysits the puppies and the other dogs bring back food for it. That is different to lions, because lions leave a hurt lion to hunt by itself. The dogs mainly hunt impala and have to eat quickly because lions and hyenas steal it. Eyespot’s brother was the alpha male, but was killed in a snare, so Eyespot hunted for the alpha female and all the puppies. It was really sad because Eyespot was killed by a farmer.

Then we went on a little walk to see some painted dogs. We saw three painted dogs, two of the dogs live there all the time. Their names are Lucky and Peanut. One of them was caught in a snare and had a limp. The other was attacked by a lion and its head was on a funny angle. The third dog, they hope to introduce to a pack. There was also a puppy that we didn’t see because they don’t want it to be near humans. The dogs have really big ears and are coloured black, brown and white. The lady threw them some meat to eat, and Peanut and Lucky splashed in a bath of water.

Then we went to Bulawayo. We went to a Railway Museum. It had lots of steam engines and we could climb them! The best thing was a push me pull you that Genevieve and I did with Daddy. It was really hard to make it move. One of the engines was called Jack Tar – it was the first engine to cross Victoria Falls. We also saw a train that was used by a man called Cecil Rhodes. Daddy said that is how you do overlanding in style. He had his own dining room, toilet, kitchen and bed. He had a lot more space than we do!

Then we went to the Natural History Museum. It also had lots and lots and lots of stuffed animals. There was a really big elephant – it said it was the second biggest stuffed elephant in the world. It was 5.5 tonnes – that is even more than the Taniwha. It was really big. There were stuffed cats, stuffed antelope, stuffed snakes, stuffed birds and insects. There were also some live snakes. It was a good museum. Then we drove to a National Park called Matobo.

Matobo was a really good park. There were big granite rocks called kopjies. We did two walks to see rock paintings. The first rock paintings showed a rhino and some people. It was really good. The second paintings showed animals, like a giraffe, buffalo, and we thought some elephants. Can you see them?

We also went to a big hill where Cecile Rhodes was buried – but we didn’t go to the top because you had to pay more. It was still a good view. Then we went to the other side of the park where the animals were. We nearly got stuck in the thatch roof of the entrance. Luckily there was another way in! There was a rock formation called, Mother and Child. I thought it looked more like a duck. Daddy said it was a tired mother and two urchin children.

We saw a few small antelope them a ranger showed us a rhino. It was a white rhino. Vivi and I were a bit scared. The ranger took us for a walk up really close to the rhino. He made lots of clicking and whistling noises to talk to it.

We camped in the park and had a big fire. Then the next day we saw a mum and baby rhino. Then we drove to a new country: Botswana.

The next day we went to the Livingstone museum. We weren’t allowed to take photos though. The museum had lots of sections. The first section had early humans with different skulls. We are Homo Sapiens. They also had skulls of Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Neaderthal and Australopithecus Afarensis. Our skull is the smallest!

There were two rooms set up with scenes. One was called ‘Our Village’ and had traditional huts. The other was called ‘Their Town’. Lots of people are moving to cities and some of the traditions are being lost.

My favourite section was the animal section. There were lots of stuffed animals – all the animals that you can find in Africa. I liked the leopard – that is one of the big five animals that we haven’t seen.

There was also a section on Dr. Livingstone. He was one of the first white men to go into the middle of Africa. Livingstone is named after him.  He was born in Scotland and was a missionary. He did lots of expeditions to Africa. This was before cars were invented and he had to walk everywhere! He followed the Zambezi River, and discovered the Victoria Falls. He was also the first European to cross from East Africa (Mozambique) to West Africa (Angola). He was trying to discover the source of the Nile River, when he got ill and had no medicine. He was helped by the slave traders – even though he didn’t agree with slavery – and the rest of the world thought that he was lost. He was found by a man called Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley found Livingstone on Lake Tanganyika and said: Dr. Livingstone, I presume. Livingstone died in Zambia. His heart was buried under a tree and his body was shipped to London and he was buried in Westminster Abbey. There were lots of his letters in the museum, but I couldn’t read his writing! When Livingstone was at school, he got a prize for hard work and was given the book Robinson Crusoe – which we read in the car!

After lots of swimming in the pool we left Zambia to go to Zimbabwe.