The first of the last stretch that will take us into Cape Town began today - a long day but this is going to be the normal distance from now, 162km. We were given an explicit warning this morning about how we should act if we encounter elephants. In the past, according to Tour Director Paul, riders have been chased or charged by elephants.

I rode fast with Paul, Lynne, and Tim (we also picked up a sectional rider, Andrew) across the flat Botswanian road. It is fairly straight and pretty monotonous, occasionally switching between smoother and rougher tarmac. It was advantageous having the draft but I suffered in the larger group, having fewew opportunities to stand up and relieve my discomfort.

There was a delicious smell coming into lunch and the staff had made burgers for us - a first for lunch! Wanting a burger, I stopped and ate. The others, racing the day, carried on and skipped what was one of the top three lunches so far (the other two were when French toast was served and when they fried eggs for us).

I rode the afternoon by myself but will probably reconsider riding in a group based on a conversation I had with a passing motorist. A white pick up truck pulled up next to me and the driver rolled down the window, 'You're crazy! You left your group way back there.'. I laughed and shrugged. He asked how much further I had to go today and where we were ultimately going, fairly standard questions. Then he continued, 'You're crazy! Everytime I've driven on this road I've seen lions. Last time there was a male on the left and two females on the right - I think he was chasing the females.' My plan is to ride with a group of slower riders so that if such an encounter happens, the lions will be occupied with the riders who are left behind whilst I can get away (just kidding).

We camped at another bush camp, when I arrived the camp air was full of butterflies, bees and general flying insects. Luckily there was no attack by the ants and my tent remained a safe zone. Certainly, when it started to rain lightly, I was happy for the dry refuge.

It was meant to be a fairly short (82km) and hence a fairly fast day into Botswana but fate obviously had other intentions. As we raced out of camp on the dirt driveway for over a kilometre, we made our way towards town and looked out for the left turn that would take us to the border. Unfortunately there were many left turns and ours was not flagged (as they usually are). Four kilometres past where the turn should have been, we stopped and asked for directions and were send spinning back towards town - adding an extra eight to the day and voiding any purpose to riding fast.

Further down the road, I heard a strange noise and all of the sudden the road became very rough. Looking back, i noticed my back tyre was flat and dropped off the fast group of three we had. Normally the first step in fixing punctures is replacing the tube - were we at home, I would have had a nice new tube to swap out. Unluckily most of my new tubes have now been spent and my spare tube was patched. The valve on the patched tube was also bent and this was my undoing - when unscrewing the pump from the valve, the mangled core came out too. Moving back to my original tube, I spent some time patching then pumping it up. By this time, Michelle, the sweep rider for the day had caught up and I was probably delayed by about forty minutes (including time for the detour).

Pushing on, I blew straight through lunch, stopping only to fill my water bottle and pump up my tyre fully. At 72km (or 80km with the detour) I reached the border and scanned out. Spending my remaining kwacha, I bought lunch (two mandazi - the fried bread / donuts that are common in Africa) and two ice cold (literally frozen) Fantas. After this, it was a quick exit stamp at the border and then a short ferry ride into Botswana.

As soon as we entered Botswana there was a clear smell of elephants, none of which we could actually see. The smell was likely coming from the turgid piles of dung which are littered across the road. Our campsite, just a few kilometres from the border, was dusty - a complete change to the grassy Zambian and Malawian campsites. I wondered where the grass had gone and could only conclude it had something to do with Botswana's large elephant population.

Our first priority in any new country is to get some local currency - Dave, Dan, Jacob and I cycled down to the local town to use the ATM. After managing to withdraw some money (others weren't so lucky), Dan and I looked for local sim cards. After asking around at a few shops at the mall, the only place that actually stocked and sold sim cards was a clothing chain called CP (something similar to an African version of Gap) - bizarre but useful.

I swapped bikes with Dan on the way back to camp - his bike is heavier but SO MUCH more comfortable. The saddle was a sofa-like experience and I advise any future riders to seriously trial out as many saddles as possible.

That afternoon about half of the riders took a river safari cruise down the Chobe River. Scrambling for a 'window' seat (a misnomer because there were no windows - the entire boat was open), I picked the wrong side. Apparently boats here also drive on the left hand drive - don't sit on the right hand side! We were promised lots of game, mainly by other riders/staff who have been on the cruise before. We saw a fair few elephants, lion, some buffalo and a tonne of hippos. Something about the higher water level here meant that there were fewer animals on the waterfront because they're able to find water further inland. In any case, the river was beautiful and it was an enjoyable, if muggy, afternoon.