So we set off into the wilderness completely at the mercy of John and Nancy. For the first few days we travelled through Chobe national park and were completely spoilt by choice of animals. The elephant sightings were simply amazing! We had some sniffing the Land rovers and others wading across rivers into the sunset. We got our first BIG cat sighting in Chobe, twice in fact, of a) leopard chilling in a tree and then b) leopard trotting right next to where we had just been. Such an rush to see them in the flesh. 
The camping wild was so exhilarating. Hearing lions, hyena and hippos from the 'safety' of our canvas shelter was a once in a lifetime. Any worries of being a hungry teenager where stamped aside by Mrs Boss (Nancy) and her all girl team's outstanding efforts and the food was really good. Amusing incidents include watching Rob try and skip (his coordination equalled that of Shadow when Crendon fed him cider), making a human giraffe and watching Mrs Boss smell lion poo. A new favourite past time of sundowners began to develop with the ample aid of savannah dry cider and windhoek lager. 
After our spell in Chobe we drove to Linyanti. This was my first real driving of our two Land rovers in deep sand and at 60km/hr it was one of the funnest times I have had in a car. It took skill that I occasionally managed to gain briefly in patches only for it to be whisked away before any form of rhythm was established. I think I need to apologise to Mum, Kirst and Nancy who were accompanying me in NC on our bump ridden, dust covered marathon of a drive. In Linyanti we met some lovely Germans and chatted until the mosquitoes had punctured my feet enough for it to feel like I had spent the evening jumping up and down on a bed of 6-inch iron nails.
From Linyanti we trucked down to Khwai, one of the most beautiful places in the world for sure. Our camp was as near to perfect as you can get. Once the challenge of a bleep test was mentioned Rob and me were in for a bitch of run in the midday heat! However the heat could have been the least of our worries as we were told of two lions less than half a kilometre down the track (more later). As usual once the exercise juices ie./ sweat were running I ended up trying to do hand stand press ups only to find out after my mediocre effort that a truck load of tourists had driven past, stopped and photographed this strange creature none of them could find in their animal guide books. Got to admit... felt a bit of a prat afterwards!
In the evening we drove in the direction of these fabled lions. And to our great surprise they really were closer to our camp than we had thought. Although they were rather preoccupied. You see they were in that lovely romantic phase of their relationship where they couldn't part company for more than a millisecond. In our 30-40 minute watch of these king of beasts they had passionate sex 4 times. Something to aspire to eh eh?? Apparently they keep going every 15 mins for 72 hours! The presence of these two immense animals in the vicinity overshadowed everything else from the evening.
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