Elephant herd stands in a boggy swamp to feed on fresh nutritious reeds.

Moremi Game Reserve, Ngamiland, Botswana:

It's getting hotter and hotter by the day here in the Okavango Delta. Today the air temperature reached about 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees F) with no breeze to cool down the scorching landscape. As a result of the stagnant heat, the animals were hard to find, obviously hiding beneath large bushes and under tall trees in order to cool down in any shade that they could find.

In the late afternoon when the day began to cool down, the landscape slowly started to come alive with antelope and other larger mammals that began to eat at the edge of the floodplain and drink from the cool swamp.

Just before sunset we came across a lovely breeding herd of elephant. There were two family groups with their calves; some were very young while the others were slightly older. At this time of year the interior is far too dry with insufficient water to sustain these large breeding herds, forcing them to move into the floodplains where nutritious reeds and bullrushes are an abundant food source.

The elephants were submerged deep in the boggy swamp, where (on most of them) the water came up to their bellies, while the smaller calves were almost completely submerged, just the tops of their heads poking through the lush green patch of reeds. It was clear that the herd was thoroughly enjoying their evening feed on fresh and nutritious reeds, pulling them out of the muddy water with a strong tug from their trunks, chewing on them for a short while, and then grabbing the next bunch of juicy vegetation.

It was visibly difficult for the young calves to walk in the thick sticky mud, and we watched humorously as the youngest calf battled to get out of the mud and onto the dry land. Clearly annoyed and frustrated, he flapped his ears and swayed his trunk as he found his footing, and then began to take an interest in us. He was very brave for such a young elephant and was quite curious about us. He walked towards us on his own, and began to smell us and shake his ears in a concerned and interested manner.

The herd continued to graze in the muddy swamp and then slowly started moving out onto the dry land. Walking through the dry grass and across the plain, they eventually moved off into the bush against the beautiful orange sunset.

- by Julie King, Earth-Touch Crew

Carpets of beautiful orange flowers lay spread across the plains in front of us... faces pointed towards the life-giving sun.

After a week of following various rumours into different areas of Namaqualand, we came at last to what you might call the "floral mother lode".

There are many beautiful flowers in Namaqualand ... something like 3 500 different species, and each as beautiful as the next. And when one stops to look at any one of them, one can only be drawn to the uniqueness of each.

But no matter how beautiful the various succulents and perennials, no person traveling to Namaqualand is ever truly satisfied until they have seen the "flower" which takes its name from this region. For it is everyone's wish to see those great landscapes filled with Namaqualand daisies ... millions upon millions of flowers covering hillsides and valleys in beautiful orange abundance.

And here today, we find them ... carpets of beautiful orange flowers spreading across the plains in front of us ... faces pointed towards the life-giving sun and cooled by the spring winds. Millions of flowers dancing in the Namaqualand spring.

And what a sight it is. It really is a magnificent spectacle, and when you first come upon it you understand why there are so many people so obsessed with this great natural phenomenon.

Watching through the course of the day, I observed how the faces of these flowers open in the morning, follow the passage of the sun across the sky, and then close their faces to sleep as the sun sets for the night.

This truly is a wonderful spectacle, and I can only say that it is one of the great blessings of this world, to witness a gathering of natural forces of this magnitude, and to see how these forces manifest into a physical phenomenon before which one can only stand in awe.

- by Paul Myburgh, Earth-Touch Crew

Gale-force winds whip the sea into a frenzy and erode the Western Cape coastline.

Some wild weather and mountainous seas have kept us out of the water on South Africa's Western Cape coast for an extra day.

This morning we were greeted by winds of up to 85km/h (53mph) ripping through the area. Together with this howling wind, sheets of rain have lashed the province, causing rivers to burst their banks and resulting in extensive flooding.

The sea looks like a washing machine; the strong winds have whipped the surface into a white foaming mass of moving water.

Deep-sea swells of up to 10m (33ft) have been recorded, and this is only the beginning. With predictions that the wind is likely to intensify, the prospect of getting out to sea over the next couple of days is looking slim.

The mountain ranges around the Cape are all capped with snow and temperatures have plummeted to 13°C (55°F).

There was no chance of going out to sea today, and I don't think we will be able to do much over the next few days either.

We took a drive up the west coast just to get the feel of this weather. Spring tides and huge seas, together with gale-force winds, have pushed huge volumes of water into Table Bay, causing extensive damage along the coastline.

Most of the beaches have changed their shape as the water has pushed up into the dunes and eroded large sections of these important beach features, leaving steep sandy walls and very little vegetation to hold the dunes together.

- by Barry Skinstad, Earth-Touch Crew