Well, its the end of the first day and I'n knackered!

Only two other voluteers here at the same time as me; Pete (from the UK) and Sarah (from Canada). Both lovely and have arrived at the project after travelling tonnes in Africa already (Pete's at 46 days and Sarah a month), so both already chilled, completely up to speed with the culture and have lovely tans! Feel like a bit of an amature by comparson.

Got in to play with the lion cubs this afternoon which was just terrific! They are so cute and really playful but even at just over two months you can tell they don't know their strength and have very well developed teeth and claws! I couldn't get over how big their paws were aswell! Will be really fun to work with them in the nursery. We don't work directly with cubs over 6 months. At first we were all desperate to get in with the big ones until we were right up beside them, saw the size of them and had been nicked a few times by the 'wee' ones! The Bengal tigers are really massive though compared to the lions. Feeding time is really fun to watch.

We got a quick look round some of the other animals in the park today but haven't been out to the big lion camps yet (the camps in which the different prides reside) but will over the next few days. The park has tonnes of different animals (that we interact with to different degres) including; zebra, springbok, meerkats, blesbok, black wildebeest ostrich, hyena, cheetah, leopards, wild dogs and the giraffe. They are all just magnificent to watch and I can hear the lions roaring as I write this. The cheetah are amazing - really slender and they have a tiny miawo that seems disproportionatley small in comparison to their size. In fact of you closed your eyes you'd be forgiven for thinking it was my wee cat Charlie crying.

Apart from the cubs my all time favorite though is Purdie, the giraffe. There's two giraffe, Purdie and Gambit (P's the female, G's the male), and they are both so adorable. I have never seen a giraffe before today and have to say that I am so totally stunned by them - they are so gracefully beautiful animals with tonnes of character, huge eyes, huge heads and really long tongues, which, I found out because one of them licked me, stink! And yes, before you ask, they could, and did, reach as far down as my height! Purdie though is my favourite though because she is so sociable and such a cheeky gal - she's into everything (tried to get into the camp that we stay in) and is just gorgeous. Will be great feeding them.

Orientation was fine - the work's hardly that onerous, everyone has been so helpful and friendly so far.

Our in-country team left us dinner tonight (we're not going shopping till tomorrow so still no shorts) and we stupidly stuck the plastic containers of food into the microwave to heat them up and proptly melted the containers and their entire cpontents all over the inside of the microwave! It was really funny at the time, we laughed for ages, but guess you had to be there. What numpties!

Oh, and managed to take a subtantial chunk out of my finger with the swiss army knife whilst undoing the wrap round my suitcase! That was about 5 hours ago and it's still bleeding - at least Paul's first aid kit hasn't gone to waste!

Anyway off to bed.

Night xx

• South Africa
• Lions