Guest entry - by Michael and Sarah (life as an overlander)

For those of you who are wondering about day to day life on our camping trip, here's a quick overview.

Campsites are generally very pleasant spots and often have pools which is very welcome in the mid to high 30's heat. We usually leave camp around 7am to avoid driving in the heat of the day, so that means tents packed in the dark and breakfast around 6am. This is rather different from our usual style, so we're still struggling to transform ourselves into lively morning people! Mornings can be very busy to meet the departure schedule and sometimes it feels like we need to leave the moment we've finished breakfast, which isn't something we particularly enjoy. Later in the day we often have blocks of time to chill out and swim, so the morning rush does balance out with downtime later.

Most of our group like drinking and partying until late, so we're a little different in our enjoyment of a few drinks before heading to bed early to cope with the early starts. It would be nice to socialise more with the group, but our "old" bodies need their beauty sleep! The atmosphere in our group is great - everyone is happy to pitch in to make camp life enjoyable and there's a real acceptance of everyone as they are.

Most days we pack up and move on, with an average drive being four hours and a few long driving days of eight hours or so. Roads are generally on the bumpy side and in Botswana they are unfenced, so we make frequent stops while horses, donkeys and cows slowly saunter off the road. Shashe (our truck) is comfortable, with padded seats, some tables, glass windows, lockers, a freezer, charging stations and an Ipod jack. In early mornings or as the day gets hotter it's easy to catch up on missed sleep as the truck rocks along.

We work as a team to take care of all the practicalities of camping, with rosters for cooking, truck packing and cleaning. Emma and Letaloi are wonderful - often we'll return from a bushwalk or other activity to find they have kindly cooked dinner for us. We also learn a lot  by asking them about things we see along the way. Letaloi is from the Masai Mara in Kenya and we've enjoyed chatting with him and learning about his life.