Checking Rani's feet

Rani's real mahout is back from holiday and he likes to start at 7.00 am so it's a bit of an earlier start but we were in the river for over half an hour washing the elephant - the mahout invited us to a mahout party but then we realised w e had to supply all the booze.

First job this morning was to make up the dough balls to give to the elephants at vet check time you mix the powder into a sort of dough and then put about 50 vitamins and mineral tablets in the middle. At vet check time you also have to clean the elephant's feet and check for sores.

We went down pinnewala again today and blogged our way down to the river it was very quiet and we had a table at the same place as Clare, Rose and I sat in 2005. The river was quite high because of all the rain and so only a few elephants came down at 12.00.

Tonight in the bar was quiz night amongst the volunteers and our team of four won.

Didn't see the puppies but one of the volunteers who's training for a half iron man saw one of the puppies on his run - evidently the dog pound tried unsuccessfully to find them but they were going back again.