Yawn! "Oh ho hum", I hear you say, "Another bloomin' post on wildlife". Quite correct.
The dawning of a new year, seemed to warrant another trip to St Lucia. Valentine's Day seemed the perfect opportunity to pack up the little Landy and head north to our favourite B & B for a lovely weekend away.
They're quite into Valentine's Day over here, and William's school got into the spirit of things by declaring a special red and white civvies day. Luckily, we were able to find a young lady down St Lucia way for William to hang out with for the weekend…
Enough of the romance, now back to the wildlife…
iSimangiliso is an enormous wetland park with seven different ecosystems and plenty of wildlife to boot. Late last year they opened up the western shore of the lake to the public, so we set the alarm for a 4am start to make the most of the morning.
Our early morning was rewarded with lots of beautiful sights including a few frolicking hippos splashing around after a big night out on the grass.
We'd heard there were some resident leopard about, and we even managed to find some prints. Unfortunately however, the closest we got to the real thing was the Leopard Tortoise I'm holding below. Thankfully we spotted the little blighter just a moment before running him over! He rewarded me by pooing on my hand - no doubt a lucky event in some cultures?
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| Family happy snap at Charters Creek on the Western Shores |
In addition to our usual game drives and hippo cruises, we also took a trip to the local crocodile centre for the weekly feeding. Lots of action with guts and gore flying everywhere as the juvenile crocs fought it out for a few chicken carcasses.
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| The big dudes just hung out with their mouths open... |
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| …while the little dudes got a nip from William. |
We weren't sure whether there was a high frequency of wheelchair visitors to the park, but this sign certainly amused us!
And so...
…that's it - another lovely weekend up at St Lucia.
