Thursday 14 January 2016 07:19, UK
From racing to shark diving, James Taylor blogs on how England have spent their downtime and reflects on that Ben Stokes knock...
As good as it's been to have a few days of downtime after back-to-back Tests, we're all ready for the off in Johannesburg.
I had one of the best days I've enjoyed in a long time (away from cricket) at the races, attending L'Ormarins Queen's Plate at Kenilworth Racecourse, Cape Town with the Bairstows.
Racing is in my family - Dad was a jockey and he now starts races around the country - and I've also got a lot of mates who work in the sport.
Usually I'm terrible at picking a winner but, for me, I had a pretty successful day - not that I put much on!
Alex Hales and I also spent time catching up with Nottinghamshire team-mate Brendan Taylor, who came over from Zimbabwe with his wife to see us, and generally I've been chilling by the pool.
Others have been more adventurous. Jos joined a group that went shark-diving (they didn't see any), Broady and Finny visited a rhino project and a few of the boys went to a lion park.
I'm going to try and stay on after the ODIs and do a couple of days' safari at Kings Camp in Kruger National Park, which should be great, but for now it's all about the cricket.
During the second Test we saw some of the best hitting from Stokesy that you're ever likely to see; I don't think many people in an England shirt will ever bat like that.
He was spot on when he said afterwards: "I will probably never play like this ever again in my life, but I've done it once, so at least I can say that." That was such a good quote.
The way that he and Jonny took it to South Africa in the first session - Stokesy scoring 130 alone - was immense.
I was nervous when he first started to play his shots simply because I wanted to see more; everything he did came off and it was an unbelievable spectacle.
The crowd more than played their part - some of the chants, the Moeen Ali-Hashim Amla one in particular, was so good. The only thing that stopped it was when Stokesy got to 200!
It was special to see the way Jonny compiled his maiden hundred, keeping his cool when a lot of players would have got giddy at the other end and tried to compete with Stokesy.
South Africa did well to come back at us but I always felt that we were in control because our bowlers kept the run-rate at three an over - the guys deserve massive credit for that.
Even though we weren't taking wickets consistently, we never let South Africa get away in the 211 overs we were in the field.
Some people have made a big deal out of the chances that went down but bar one or two they were all very hard. You're not going to catch every one that comes your way in 211 overs.
We set very high standards for ourselves and we've worked hard in training this week to match up to those.
In the last year our catching has been very good - especially in the Ashes, when it was unbelievable - so I don't think there's anything to over-think.
We know that if we win this Test we win the series, so it's going to be a massive first day; it's important for us to get into the game early but also to not look too far ahead.
Fingers crossed that no one gets the stomach illness that's been doing the rounds. Nick Compton looked like a dead man walking on our travel day and had to miss the first day of training.
But Compo is now back at training and seems to have recovered - we're all ready to go for this crucial Test.
Live coverage of the third Test between South Africa and England begins at 8am on Thursday 14 January on Sky Sports 2 HD.
