I knew we were almost there as soon as I opened my eyes. I woke up in the plane to a deep orange wedge of light painted on the wall in front of me. Coincidentally it was the same semi-circle shape of a setting sun so naturally Elton John started belting out the Circle of Life in my head. Since we're talking Disney, I was as excited as Bambi seeing snow for the first time as I frantically peered over people's heads to catch a glimpse of that iconic African sunrise...as if the only time I'll see it in 6 weeks is through a 40cm Airbus window. With that thought, here is my first actual Kruger sunrise...

In 15 days (who’s counting) I’m hopping on a plane to South Africa. Before starting the volunteering job I’ll spend 9 days in Kruger National Park, cruising around in my elephant-proof Ford Fiesta. Sounds like a piece of cake…

3 months ago I couldn’t even put a glass over a spider in my house and now I find myself studying snake species and popping anti-malaria tablets. I choose to ignore the stories I read about an elephant once flipping a car, the Mozambique spitting cobra that came to visit a girl in her toilet, or the lion that decided to bite into a guy’s tyre because…it looked tasty and it didn’t look like the driver was in a hurry to get anywhere?

I’m sure that despite the inevitable urge I’ll have to stick my head out the car window, tongue out like our old Weirmeraner, if I stay IN the car all will be well. This is assuming however that I don’t crash it first (a more difficult task for me than one might think)…

Here’s the plan to alert the emergency services mum when the blog suddenly stops…