Anique took Dorje to school by train today. Arriving at Pinelands station, they were met by a huge crowd of people trying to get on to the train. The crowd forced themselves through the door, pushing those trying to get off back onto the train.

Anique managed to get off, but without Dorje, who was being bashed too and fro by those pushing to get on.

With visions of the train leaving with Dorje stuck on it, she did an Ian (I’ll take that as a compliment this time). Fortunately Dorje couldn’t hear above the crowd what she was shouting, and in the end Dorje, slightly shaken, managed to get off.

And promptly tripped, hitting his head on Anique’s laptop.

Luckily no major damage done, but Dorje’s journal is full of capital letters and exclamation marks, and finished off with a giant “HOSTILE MOBS” taking up an entire page. Just this once, I decided not to correct “mobs” to “mob”.

Let’s hope he doesn’t encounter any real hostile mobs, whether singular or plural, anytime soon.

Dorje, Anique and I spent a few days at the Augrabies Falls, the largest waterfall in South Africa. My body had just got used to Rovaniemi in the Arctic, where the December average temperature is -7, before being thrust into the heat of Augrabies, where the December average is 41.

So, most of the time was spent inside the air-conditioned cottagers (I shudder to think what those camping must have experienced) trying to get through the two boxes of boardgames I packed.

When we did venture out during the day (the main point was to see the falls, after all), it didn’t take long before we were on hands and knees crawling back to shelter, being eyed out by the birds of prey.

The park is far more than just the falls though, and we ventured out on a cool evening (probably a mere 34 degrees or so) to go on a game ride. The park includes leopard, giraffe, kudu, eland, and the highest concentration of lizards imaginable.

Coming back from Augrabies on the 31st, it was tempting to give Dorje the experience of a lifetime – New Years in Pofadder (the local equivalent of the English Timbuktu or America’s Kalamazoo). But I was overruled by Dorje and Anique’s fears that New Year’s supper would be another toasted cheese consisting of stale white bread, margarine and non-melted grated cheese (our stopover in Springbok on the way up will be forever remembered for its remarkable cuisine), and we drove on, making do with a photo instead.