Started the day feeding the baby lion cubs. All tired after a long day yesterday and thunder storm all night so run down from the nursery went ok. They did escape later on though when Pete went to pick up their poo and left a gate open! Que mad panic round the park!

Fed and mucked out the meerkats. Everyone else sleepy because yesterday was the big feed (the adult lions, cheetah and tigers only get their meat twice a week, to mimic the regularity of feeding they would have in the wild).

Got to stroke two 8month old tigers today when their camp was being cleaned. Just awesome. They are gorgeous and really huge! The park has some lion cubs the same age and these girls are so much bigger than them (and the lions are pretty big).

Purdy and Gambit also exhaused from all the visitors yesterday and, whilst they must have eaten a tonne and a half of food yesterday they only managed a few bags and couple of visitors before wandering off for a bit of peace and quiet for the rest of the day.

Had lunch of pap and patties (interesting) with our boss Earl who gave me the lowdown on the park's history and the difficulty they have in just keeping afloat. They really do rely of tonnes of goodwill (all the animal meat is donated), volunteers and people working there because they want to rather than the money (their staff get paid a pittance). They are also always having to rebuild bits of the park because fencing, gate posts, alarm sirens, telphone wire etc gets stolen, for re-sale, by locals as quickly as it takes to re-order it. Really feel for them. Everyone here so lovely - getting to know the girls in the kitchen quite well because coffee is on the house and I'm known as the 'coffee friend'.

Met a couple of visitors from the uk today at the griaffe station. I asked them where they were from and were shocked when I asked where in the uk. More shocked when I asked where when they said Scotland. Even more shocked when I asked where when they said 'just outside Glasgow' and even more shocked when I told them I was from Ayrshire. V funny - they couldn't quite understand how I came to end up here.

Got kissed by Purdy my favourite giraffe. We taught her this trick where you put a food pellet, or really young tree shoot, between you lips and she reaches down and picks it up from your mouth! Sounds disgusting but just wicked that she is so trusting and incredibly sweet (and as I said to one visitor, the worst that can happen is that you get gobbed on!).

Sarah and Pete think it's really funny that I think Purdy is gooorrrrrgeous (apparently I say it like outraaaageous) and have been taking the mick all day. We've had a really good laugh actually. Sarah, being Canadian, says 'eh' all the time aswell and Princess (one of the park staff) is pregnant and keeps blaming every mood on her pregnancy so there's been a good bit of banter all round today.

Went on a game drive this afternoon and visited all four prides. Amazing! Letsatsi is the biggest lion - 300kg of white lion - and he is just stunning. There's the pure white pride (Letsatsi's), a split pride, another split pride (run by Jamu and Mouglies) and the teens that are the decendants from the first three prides. Still to see Walk on the Wildside which is the camp that houses all the animals that have been habituated to their handlers and have appeared in films and TV. Only volunteers are taken there so is pretty special and should see it this week. Camera memory card died on me in the middle of it though and went to put in the 8GB one Mark kindly got me for going away, only to find that it was the wrong type for my camera. Missed some amazing shots which was a bit of a bummer because we were really close to the big ones. Only shopping opportunity for new memory card is on the way back from the vets tomorrow so, darn, will just have to tag along as one of the lions gets taken for an operation. Will be wicked! Every cloud has a silver lining!

Went back to prepare the hyena's food at the nursery. Was shaking their bottle of egg yolk, cream and milk (which gets poured over their soaked dog pellets), took my finger off the bottle lid at the end and the whole bottle completely exploded, everywhere!!! The mix when absolutely everywhere - bags, jackets, cub food, the floor, the walls.....everyone was so stunned and then in hysterics for ages. I can hardly write this because I'm still shaking with laughter it was so funny! It was like this cycle of hysteria though because when one of us couldn't stop laughing everyone else stopped laughing at the explosion and started laughing at us still laughing and so it went on....you had to be there. Needless to say the washing machine was in overdrive tonight (and it's a good job we've got one cause we stank afterwards!).

Weather not so good today. Thought it would have cleared after the storm but think there's more to come. Appear also to have been the tastiest thing on the mosquito's menu recently! Never mind.

Hope all's well back there. Night, night xx

• tigers
• Lions
• South Africa