Thursday, 11th November 2010 (Paul Hyde's birthday)
Another beautiful day, Skipper got up early and did the blog, the emails and a breakfast.
The weaver birds provided the early morning music and this relaxed everyone on board.
We had a great laugh over the breakfast recalling last night and all the shannigans. It was a great night to remember.
We had a lot of trouble with the shore power, so we ran the generator for an hour or so, to charge up the batteries, and do the breakfast...
11.00hrs The mighty 5 piled into the rent a car and headed North to St. Lucia. This is part of their National Park System, and is very close to the coast. The river and lakes all drain into the sea at St.Lucia and is a very upmarket place... St Lucia is 120 km north of Richards Bay.
We decided to have a lunch in the village, which was excellent, and from there we went to the river and boarded the river boat for a tour of the estuary. Ohhhhh, just fantastic! The river water was brown from all the recent rain, but not in flood, in fact the whole river was very shallow, and our boat grounded a few times during the afternoon, but not a problem.
We saw lots and lots of Hippo's plus a few Crocodiles, gosh, they are huge mammals, and did you know, that Hippo's kill more people every year than any other animal or Mammal on the planet Earth??? The Hippo eats grass for its main food source, and will travel up to 80km for a good supply of grass. However, the Hippo has poor eyesight and if threatened will attack straight away, particularly if it has a baby close by, so as humans and hippo's live in close proximity, then there is always trouble with fatal consequences, mostly for the humans. Ohhhhhhhh, its enough to make one shudder with fear. These are big things, weighing up to 2 tons, that's big!
We also saw a great variety of birds, from eagles to hawlks and buzzards and the odd few Vultures. Funny thing, when we were kids (just a few years ago) we were scared of Vultures, the very mention of a Vulture would raise the hairs on the back of the neck ......... And we never even saw a Vulture at that stage. They conjured up scenes of us (me) lying injured on the ground and in come the vultures and eat us alive... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, gawd, what a way to go!
18.00hrs We drove back to Richards Bay, and went directly to "Porky's" restaurant for a fantastic dinner. The dinner included Lamb curry for S & A, Sole on the bone with prawns for Terry, Lamb shank for Colette, and Steak for Neil, plus all the wine and beer, all for 11 euros each, But, BUT, BUT, when we were finished the owner Donald came and joined us with a free drink (that I cannot mention the name) for everyone at the table. Colette really enjoyed the drink and has a big smile on her face since, plus is still talking about it.
You can and may blow your mind away and try to guess the drink name.
We had a great evening, and later returned to the boat for a few more night caps before hitting the scratchers. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZ
That's all for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)