18-Sept: South Africa - St Lucia (Whalesong B&B)

Set off to iSimangaliso Wetland Park at 08:30, Pete had wanted to leave earlier, but the earliest breakfast time the B&B would offer was 07:30.

Spent the day driving around again looking for wildlife. Mainly spotted antelope and buffalo. Was also surprised to discover there were so many dung-beetles in the area. They were flying about all over the joint. We did come across a male rhino who got down and jiggy with a rock, completely oblivious to all the giggling voyeurs watching him.

We then watched as some fool drove down a restricted dirt track and plonked their vehicle a few hundred yards directly in front of the rhino in order to get a better photo opportunity. Annoyed that this tool was going to scare off the rhino I secretly wished that he would charge them. The rules in game parks are easy, (1) stay in your vehicle and (2) stay on the main roads. But no, there was a girl hanging out a passenger window of a 4x4 taking shots with her huge zoom lens DSLR.

Later on there was a minivan that stopped right in front of us, not more than 10ft from the rhino and everyone hopped out and started taking photos of themselves with the rhino in the background. Seriously this is how accidents happen, and then the poor creature gets put down for killing or maiming complete idiots! (when in fact, it's probably done the world a bit of a favour - natural selection and all that jazz). Grrrr! It was incredibly frustrating to watch. Pete may have had a few choice words with the minibus passengers, who very quickly returned, disgruntled, to their vehicle.

Leaving iSimangaliso we stopped into the St Lucia Crocodile Centre. Got to see some splendid crocs, of whom I'm now a huge fan (you'd never guess from all the photos). Spent quite a bit of time happily gazing at these awesome creatures that are so prehistoric looking. Managed to observe their basking behaviour up close, and even went eyeball to eyeball with a few gigantic monsters.

Dinner that night was at a popular South African franchise called Ocean Basket. There I witnessed Francois practically eat his body weight in sea-food: oysters, mussels, prawns, calamari and catch of the day - which I think was Kingklip.