Have a Peaceful and Predictable 2010!

Hey Robin. Thank you for the birthday wishes. BTW, did you mean every year you aspire to be as mature as me? (Rather than as old as me.)

But you don’t feel like you ever get there. Now that makes more sense!!

Although to state the obvious, we are doing our best to give you every opportunity to catch up!!

Let me fill you in.

But first … the privilege of doing this – taking a year out with your family. I love it.

I’m relieved to say that we’ve all changed. This is getting easier by the day. The boys in particular have changed. Their work attitude has improved 100%, they contribute more positively, travel better and don’t complain. Everything is much smoother. And there is less pressure on Ajay. We’ve stayed ‘off-road’ several times, and have stayed at small villages with no electricity and round mud huts several times. And all the way to the other end of the scale too. 100 pounds for camping per night…!

I still am not sure if I would actually recommend a trip like this … between you, me and the gate post. We seem to sail perilously close to the wind maybe a little too often, which I don’t always enjoy at the time.

Today Ajay took Portia and Eden just 200m off the lip of the Victoria Falls, along the edge of the weir. I couldn’t look, let alone film it! Although, as Ajay will be quick to tell you, it wasn’t that dangerous.

Our new car is going nicely, on the whole. We came up through Botswana over Christmas.

I feel as if we have one ‘drama’ after another. We did some ‘wild’ camping just before Christmas, the first we’d done in Namibia, only to find out our car wouldn’t start the next morning. We were 20 miles walk from the previous village we’d passed. And it was hot, hot. For better or worse the camera crew were with us! So we could jump start the car. Ajay eventually found out we have a 24v starter motor and so couldn’t steal all the charge for the freezer from the 2^nd battery. Then a few days ago the roads were so bumpy. We assume the river crossings effected the breaking system on the trailer, so with all the sand and potholes we had to go through, the weight of the trailer kept bumping into the tail of the car bring the tow bar extension down by an angle of 30 degrees. We limped on to the next major town, a day’s travel. Ajay asked a group of guys, who took us into the local township (all the time assessing how safe this tip was.) There Ajay found help and contacts to fix it!

The first river crossing was in the middle of the Okavango Delta. We were in the middle of nowhere again, relying on the laptop and using Tracks for Africa. It’s amazing how reliable we can navigate with it. (Except the laptop took a break for no known reason. I sympathise entirely and wish I could take a 3 or 4 day break too. Just one!) Now when you cross a river – you are meant to get out and check the depth. We had just finished watching a group of 14 elephants and their babies, and also a rather frisky hippo which I was a tad weary of. When you know there are crocs and hippos in the nearby lakes, what would you do? Anyway, we had a quick look at the depth of this river and preferred side to go. But I tell you, as we went through the river, we had the fright of our lives when the river bed suddenly dropped and the water came up to the windscreen, twice in the same crossing. We’ve got stuck a few times too, but not seriously … yet, although much to the amusements of some locals today! Since then we’ve check the rivers more thoroughly and know that the car can comfortably go through a metre deep … as long as the bottom is solid! There is supposed to be more rain as we go further north and as we get into January. Yet despite all this we are seriously looking at extending the trip to Christmas next year.

Maturity. Now there’s an ambiguous quality!!!