Day 350 South Africa 18/10/2011, Bushpackers camp-site, Hazyview. Aaargh snake! and a rather less stressful shopping trip.

Considering it is the first time we have used the tent for a while, we slept pretty well. We woke to a light rain this morning and had an unexpected encounter with a sheltering snake. Once again it was me who moved a bag and practically gave myself a heart attack. The snake was only a baby about 30cm long, but that was plenty big enough to cause me to squeal like a girl. Or at least that is what Debs claimed I sounded like! All I could think of was that I had read somewhere that all brown coloured snakes in Africa are venomous. Here I was suddenly confronted by a small brown coloured snake.

I told Debs to stay in the inner tent, while I set about trying to usher it outside. This would have been much easier if we had two working doors. Eventually it rather slowly slithered out and into the undergrowth. It wasn't at all aggressive and had I known that it was harmless I would happily of picked it up, but as yet I still don't know what kind of snake it was.

Panic over, we headed to the kitchen to make breakfast and then rode into the town to get some food for the road. Taking the bikes to a shopping mall in South Africa was a bit of a problem. It seems that no-one rides a bike here so there is nowhere to secure them safely. When we tried to lock them to a post we were told that we couldn't leave them there and were directed to the motorbike parking area. As this was just an open bit of concrete we weren't overly keen to leave them locked and leaning against a dustbin. The security guards assured us that they would look after them, so other than leaving empty handed we had no choice but to trust them.

Walking round a shopping mall that contained three supermarkets is taking some getting used to. It is great being able to buy food, but is just too easy to get carried away. Showing remarkable restraint, we left with full bags of food that we actually needed and left the exotic treats behind.

Back at the bikes the security guard had been true to his word and everything was still there. We gave a small tip and guess this is what we will have to do when we stop anywhere with the bikes. Security of our possessions is not something we have had to worry about too much prior to now.

There was no mad partying at the camp-site tonight, instead it was an early dinner followed by an early night. We have a bit of climbing to do tomorrow and it has been a while since we have been seriously in the hills. Let's hopes our legs hold out!

Day 349 South Africa 17/10/2011, Komatipoort – Bushpackers camp-site, Hazyview. 10.58miles/17.09km, 1hr13minutes, Av 8.6mph.

We sadly packed up our gear this morning, loaded the bikes on the trailer Dave had borrowed, said goodbye to Mike and set off for the park at 7:30am.

We had an early sighting of some rhino and giraffe, but the main aim of the trip was to spot some lions. Julie has not seen lions in the wild and our last game drive was sadly devoid of them. Dave was confident that we would definitely see some before he dropped us off. For a while that looked like a bold claim as the park appeared almost empty of any wildlife. Four hours in the park passed and we still hadn't found any. We had seen elephants, impala, kudu, zebra, hippos and rhino, but no lions.

When it was looking like they may elude us again, Dave stopped to chat to a guide who told us that there was a pride of lions feeding on a dead hippo not too far away. We set off with a purpose, it looked like the day wouldn't be lion free after all. Sure enough we found the hippo carcass and with it three male lions. We could happily leave safe in the knowledge that we had seen the big five in Kruger NP.

Towing a trailer is not terribly conducive to game viewing, so when the traffic around the lion sighting started to move we had to go with it. Also the day was wearing on and Dave still needed to pay his fees. About an hour later and we were at the gate and unloading our bikes. It has been an absolute pleasure to meet Dave, Mike and Julie, but was definitely time to be moving on before we forget how to ride a bike!

Waving goodbye we headed off up the road and into the hills. The journey may have only been 17km, but it was a good work out to help prepare for the road ahead.

Arriving at Bushpackers camp-site, after stopping for supplies in the town, we met Adrian and were shown to the camping area. We plan to camp as much as possible in South Africa to try and keep the costs down.

Sadly our tent seems to be having other ideas as the long running zip saga came to a head when it refused to work at all. Even nipping the slider up with a pair of pliers didn't work this time. It is just fortunate that the front entrance zip is working. With a lot of swearing I eventually got the other zip done up, at the cost of one of the sliders which fell to bits! We will try to get it repaired on the road somewhere, but for now we will have to hope the other zip keeps working. I am finding it hard to be impressed by the performance of our very expensive Hilleberg tent.

After the stress of the zips, there was nothing else to do but go for a beer. It is just as well that we are staying put tomorrow as we had quite a few beers. Bushpackers is pretty far removed from Dave's Kruger View backpackers. Adrian is a little on the mad side and at some point we ended up wearing a selection of his hat collection.

It was a good night and I expect that there will be a small hangover to nurse in the morning.

Day 347-348 South Africa 15/10/2011 – 16/10/2011, Kruger View Backpackers, Komatipoort. Finding it hard to leave!

We have settled so comfortably into South African life that instead of hitting the road we are still in Komatipoort! Obviously the fact that the Rugby World Cup semi finals were on had something to do with it. We didn't expect to be watching the second semi final in a Wimpy (diner) though, but it was the only place we could find that was showing it. Had South Africa got through the last round, we have no doubt that everywhere would have shown it.

Aside from the rugby, it has been the terrific company that has kept us here. We have stayed with lots of great people along the way. This however is the first time that we have been made to feel so overwhelmingly welcome, while still being paying guests. Dave is running by far the best backpackers we have ever stayed in and we couldn't recommend it enough to anyone planning a Kruger trip. When we eventually leave, it is going to be very hard to say goodbye.

Speaking of leaving, we are definitely off tomorrow. Dave has very kindly offered to take Debs, myself and Julie on a free game drive. He has to go into the park to pay his fees, so he is going to take us and all our gear through the park to another gate, where we can ride the short distance to Hazyview. This will save us a couple of days on the road, which is great as we have to come back the same way when we head south. We won't actually miss anything, we just won't have to do it twice.

Day 345-346 South Africa 13/10/2011 – 14/10/2011, Kruger View, Komatipoort. Shopping, resting, chatting and settling into South African life

It wasn't our original plan, but it is so nice and we have been made so welcome that we decided to stay here for longer than we intended. Dave has been a terrific host as has Mike and we have enjoyed chatting to Julie.

Finding ourselves in a very western country after the last few months has taken some getting used to. It was all we could do not to go on a mad spending spree when we found ourselves in a well-stocked, modern, supermarket. We are going to have to watch our budget as there was just so many things that we could have bought. With help from the Vodacom shop we got our mobile internet sorted, so we are back online. Hopefully we will be back to regularly updating the blog. We know that while in Mozambique the amount we posted in one go was a bit overwhelming.

Mainly though we have been relaxing in a lovely setting, swimming in the pool and enjoying the view from the balcony overlooking Kruger National Park. Dave's meals have been so good that we have forgone cooking and we should be having our second braai (BBQ) tonight.

Tomorrow we head towards Nelspruit. We may make it in one day, but if not there are plenty of alternatives along the route. So far our South African odyssey has got off to a very good start.

Day 344 South Africa 12/10/2011, Kruger View Backpackers, Komatipoort. A game drive in Kruger National Park.

5am and we were awake and ready to go for our game drive. Dave has his own safari vehicle which was going to be driven by Mike, a young guy who is staying with Dave while he gains experience as a Safari guide. Despite taking up to ten passengers we were going to be a party of three. Aside from ourselves we would be joined by Julie, a young woman from Germany. Clearly the air-conditioned dorm room was just too comfortable, as while we sat in the car waiting to go at 5:15am, Julie was just getting up!

A few minutes late leaving, we were under way and heading for the Crocodile bridge gate of Kruger National Park. Before we had even got into the park properly we had our first animal encounter with an elephant crossing the road in front of us.

This was to be the first of many animal sightings during the day. I suppose you could say that rather disappointingly we didn't see any lions, but we made up for it with a huge amount of giraffe (one of them almost entirely white), a moving leopard (not asleep in a tree), lots of elephants, hippos and antelope and most excitingly for us, lots of white rhino.

The whole day was a great experience, Mike was an excellent guide and it was nice to be part of small friendly group. I won't go into much detail about the day except to say that we hope you enjoy looking at the photos. Hopefully they will give a much better account of what the safari was like than I ever could.

Back at the backpackers we enjoyed a nice dinner of chicken stir-fry and rice washed down with a few beers, before the day caught up with us. There hopefully will be no early start tomorrow.