Okay, so hopefully you've recovered from the image of the zebra skin on the floor of our lounge and are ready to feast your eyes on some of the living delights of Lake St Lucia.
The hippopotamus has to be one of the most insane creatures we have yet encountered. Being extremely sensitive to the sun, they spend most of their day underwater sleeping, before heading out onto the grassy plains at night to gorge themselves on grass. And cute though they may look, they are actually extremely dangerous and seem to take a particular dislike for humans in their path.
Boat Trip
One of the best ways of seeing the delights of the lake is to jump on board one of the many boat cruises around. Afternoons are best as the hippo start to wake up and get ready for their evening journey onto the grasslands. There are about 1200 hippo in the lake, and I reckon we saw about 100 of them in their various family groups.
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| Rugged up! |
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| The hippo live in groups and huddle together in the water to protect the babies from predators. |
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| Two cute little babies. |
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| Not looking overly impressed - I reckon you could get one of those nasal hair trimmers to work on this one's ears. |
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| Rise and shine! By 5pm it was time to get ready for the night's foraging. |
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| The birdlife is insane, and we watched this fish eagle pick up dinner only metres away from the boat. |
Also resident in the lake are over 2000 crocodile, so if the hippos and bull sharks don't scare you off from having a swim, these babies should!
Back on dry land
Back on dry land, we went in search of some rhino and were lucky enough to spot some hippo actually out of the water having a laze in the sun. Clearly, they pack a mean punch for a herbivore!
We eventually found a rhino, going for a stroll with its little bubba! Cute!
On examination of the photograph above, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Rhinoceros suffers from a variant of SIDS, but no, these red horns are fund raisers for another great threat to the Rhinoceros' survival - poaching. It's a hot topic around here as sadly, many of these beautiful creatures are shot and de-horned for the dubious medicinal value of the horn itself. It sounds like authorities were making some great inroads to the problem, however on the weekend we visited iSimangaliso, SEVEN rhino were killed along the western shore of the lake.
And so...
...I have soooooo many more photos from this weekend's adventures! To quote William, the whole thing was 'totally awesome'. We finished off bumping into a couple of families we know from Will's school at Mission Beach. He had a great time with his mates making their own little braais, fulfilling yet another universal truth - that kids everywhere just love to play with fire.
