Because I’m such a teenager (!?) I was too lazy to do a blog for a while, but it’s back to me for the second last day of our Africa trip (cue Mum – ‘NO! DON’T LET YOUR MIND GO HOME!’ Me – ‘My mind is already home, sitting in my room, doing MSN.’).

Today we got up at five (uuurrrghhhhh) for a car journey to Sossusvlei, which isn’t actually a dune but a dried up lakey thing at the end of a dried up river. We took a covered car (phew – an open top jeep like the ones we usually go in would be exceptionally freezing at five in the morning) to the entrance to the national park where all the dunes are. I forget the name…Namib Naukluft Mum says.  Then, after getting a permit ahead of lots of old people in an open jeep (‘they’re only going somewhere to die anyway’) we started towards Sossusvlei.

It was very windy. By very windy, I mean VERY VERY WINDY ARGH OH NO WIND.

After taking a lot of pictures, we stopped at Sossusvlei and decided to climb Dune 21, which didn’t look too monstrous at about 94.341 metres high (since dunes are dynamic it’s very hard to get an exact measurement). We started off, and by halfway we were being blown horizontal by the wind and we had sand in every place it is possible to get sand. I was cleaning sand out of my ears. I’m still cleaning sand out of my ears. It was incredibly tiring, since every step you take you slide half a step back, but we managed to get to the top.

Looking at the little notes Dad found necessary to put at the bottom of my typing (in case my teenage brain can’t remember what happened yesterday), he wants me to mention the Dead Vlei… I personally think it was just a lot of dead plants, trees, etc, but maybe that’s what it was and Dad just has a fascination with the cardiovascularily challenged.

After another brilliant lunch we split up. Dad and I went quad biking and Mum and Hannah went on a scenic drive. More from Hannah about the drive later…

Quad biking was ‘the bizzo’ as Dad would say. We went with a woman from Hull and her husband. The quad bikes are semi automatic and have a sign on them saying STRICTLY NO UNDER SIXTEENS. RIDING THIS BIKE WHEN YOU ARE UNDER SIXTEEN INCREASES THE CHANCES OF INJURY OR DEATH but we chose to ignore that, along with the ALWAYS WEAR PROTECTIVE GEAR AND A HELMET sign. Whoops. Unfortunately we got the bikes behind woman and her husband, who were slow, and on the very very jarring rutted bits it’s not fun being stuck behind someone… After a slightly wobbly start Dad and I got more confident, zooming along (as much as we could) and even waiting for the other people to get a bit further ahead so we could get up to gear five (the fastest speed). I think we have a fascination for fast machines. Dad broke down (leaving me to talk to everybody else) but Dad managed to fix the quad bike. When we were back at the shed where they keep the bikes, we realised Johannes (one of the two guides) had broken down. Since we were driving in very tight circles at that point, Dad and I were ready to play the heroes and we immediately leapt into action, racing along the road ’til we found Johannes and helped him fix his bike. All’s well that ends well. 

Dad also spotted a couple of bat eared foxes. Unlike the ‘bat eared fox/Nyala’ which he ’saw’ in Phinda, these were actually real. Mum and Hannah doubt this.

Hannah’s Bit:

Meanwhile Mum and I had gone on a scenic drive to the petrified dunes.  They weren’t just scared they were totally petrified…aeeeeeee.  Whilst puzzling over over the many possibilities for the fairy circles we didn’t realise that by going to the petrified dunes we were going to end up <in a movie voice> in our doom!  Neste our driver was driving over a huge dune when we got stuck!  Everybody had to get out of the truck and Mum and I had to try and dig the truck out of the sand.  We were pushing and pulling it.  Eventually I sat down and drew some sand pictures.  It took about an hour by which time most of the dunes were littered with sand pictures.  Finally the truck was pushed out of the sand and after a few meters it got stuck again.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Once again it took a long time to get the truck out of the sand and by then it was nearly dark.  The guide did some really crazy driving up and down dunes when we saw at the bottom that the jack wouldn’t fit on the van.  Coincidence, I think not.  Then we drove home in the dark and…we saw an Aardwolf (rather dazed by the light).

After Uluru we took a bus out to Kata Tjuta which is about 40km from Uluru. Unfortunately it was with the talkative Wren who bored us rigid with more piffle. (Isabelle can now do an extremely good impersonation of her). However, Kata Tjuta (or “The Olgas” as they used to be known) are stunning. Much harder to take photos of compared to Uluru. They’re considerably larger and you can walk through the gorges between each lump of rock.



It’s very hard in the picture to get the impression of scale of the rocks…which is probably why they’re a lot less famous than Uluru. Here is a better picture taken by a professional. Still doesn’t do it justice.

So, off to Cairns now to stay in Palm Cove and lie on the beach. More from there.

About 1 hour’s drive from Kuching, there is a park called Bako National Park. It is one of the best national parks in Borneo and has a huge variety of animals and plants. We had to drive to the edge of the Sarawak river and then take a boat to get to the park entrance. There, the first thing we saw was a sign warning of some of the dangers in the park.

We followed a very steep and windy path through the jungle. It was really hot and humid.

One of the rarest species in the Bako Park is the Proboscis Monkey. They are very ugly and the males have huge floppy noses. We saw a troop of the monkeys but they move very quickly and are hard to see and this was the best photograph we managed to get.

We also saw some mud skippers which are very interesting because they’re fish which can brieath air. Fish like these were some of the first animals to colonise the land millions of years ago.
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We also saw lots of other types of monkeys and also a very interesting type of pig called a Bearded Pig. They are also quite shy but Dad managed to sneak up on one and take a picture.

The jungle was really interesting to see. There are huge plants and ferns with razor sharp thorns. There were rattan vines which were nearly 100m long.