Archive for ‘Eleanor’

Blog posts by Eleanor

Birthday in Mozambique

Daddy had his birthday and had to take the Taniwha into the garage. We gave him a new leatherman, but he stabbed his hand with it. Then he superglued it together. I also made him a special pillowcase with ‘Dadbeard’ on it. It was to remind him of his days at pirate school.

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Leanne helped us make chocolate muffins for him. They were yummy, and we even had special candles to put on them that stayed alight even when you blew them out!

Then we drove back north. We stayed one night at the Bush Baby camp, then we went to Mozambique.

It took ages at the border because they had a new computer program. Then we went to a special dive camp. Daddy did two dives. He saw a giant sea bass, lots of coral and fish.

While Daddy was diving we played on the beach.  I made a huge sand castle, then I put booby traps around the outside. It was a lot of fun.

One day we went for lunch in the village. I had a yummy hawaiian pizza. At the end of the lunch we were allowed to write on the walls of the bar. Genevieve did a picture of a kiwi. I wrote my initials in a heart.

 

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Cape Town!

After the Alantic coast, we drove to a camp near Cape Town. It had a beach covered in dead crabs and a really good playground. The next day we drove to parkrun, and I did my 19th one around some windturbines. They were really noisy.

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After parkrun we went to visit Mummy’s cousin who lives just outside Capetown. We had a very yummy lunch and we were allowed to help and set the table. They also gave me a really nice colouring book and Geneveive got a unicorn colouring book too.

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Then we went to visit Daddy’s uncle. He had some cool musical instruments for us to play with.

Then we went to the Cape of Good Hope. This is the point that the Indian and Atlantic ocean meet. We saw lots of ostriches. We also saw lots of penguins. They are a bit smelly!

After that we stayed in Capetown for 2 days. We went to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront and had really good pizza.

We went to Robben Island. This is where Nelson Mandela was in prison. He was in prison for 27 years (though not all of that on Robben Island) We did a bus tour and saw the quarry that he worked in. We also saw his prison cell that just had a bed and a little table.

In Capetown we went to the aquarium. It was really good. We saw lots of fish, ragged tooth sharks, and manta rays. My favourite was the jelly fish. There were also african penguins. Did you know they used to be called jackass penguins because they sound like donkeys.  I even got to touch a starfish and a sea anemone.

My favourite thing in Capetown was called scratch patch. It was a big space filled with rocks. We got a little bag each and could fill it with as many rocks as we liked!

After this we went up onto Table Mountain. The cable car was amazing, it turned around as we were going up the mountain! The view was spectacular. We did a walk around the top. There were no fences and if you weren’t careful you could fall all the way down. Some people walked up the mountain.

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Atlantic Coast

After the Richtersveld we drove along the Atlantic Coast. This is the west coast of South Africa. On the way we saw 2 shipwrecks. One was in Hondeklip Bay and was called the Jahleel. It was shipwrecked in 2003. We had our lunch next to the shipwreck Aristea. It was shipwrecked in 1945. Vivi and I made Mummy and Daddy a salad for lunch. We did it all by ourselves!

Daddy rescued a tortoise in the middle of the road and it peed on him!!

Then we did another national park called Namaqua Coastal Park. This park is supposed to be very pretty in the spring because of lots of wild flowers. But most of the flowers had finished. We drove right down to the water and got stuck in the sand. Mummy and Daddy had to dig us out. Then we saw a big seal colony. There were so many seals. They looked like fat slugs, and they were really smelly. Some of the photos weren’t very good because the sea fog was coming in.

After the park we did a wild camp by the beach. There were lots and lots of shells, so Vivi and I made shell shops.

Then we went to a Rooibos tea house. We saw a video on how they make tea. Then I tried some iced tea. It was yummy.

Then we went into the Cedarberg Wilderness Area. It was very mountainous, with lots of rock formations. We stayed at a camp and I went swimming in the river. It was very cold. Daddy went fishing and caught a small yellowfish. During dinner I saw a tortoise walk past! Vivi and I went running through a sprinkler because it was soooooo hot.

Then we went back to the coast. We went to Bird Island and learnt about guano – which is bird poo. They used to collect it to make fertiliser. But it is bad because it didn’t leave enough for the sea birds to lay their eggs in. We saw lots of gannets, but also saw two penguins. They had some skeletons in a museum and I liked one of a seagull and you could see the fish skeletons and bits of plastic in its tummy!

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Park 3: Richtersveld

After Augrabies Falls we went to Springbok and did parkrun.

Then we went to our third park, the Richtersveld. This park is on the border of South Africa and Namibia. It was really remote and we had to do lots of gravel roads to get there. Once we were there,we drove over a mountain pass to see the hand of god. The hand of god looks like a palm print in the side of a rock. It was very impressive.

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Then we drove over some bumpy roads to get to our camp by the orange river. The river was really pretty. We were parked on sand, but there were lots of rocks to play on. We spent a day just relaxing.

Mummy did some sewing. Daddy went fishing, and he caught lots of yellowfish. They were really slimey.

Vivi and I did lots of playing. We all went swimming in the river, it got really deep. It was safe because there were no hippos or crocodiles. Then Vivi and I had a go swimming in the current. I had to go deeper than Vivi, otherwise I would get stuck on the rocks. It was lots of fun.

That night Daddy found a firefly and showed us. It was glowing greeny yellow! Then it flew off.

The next day when we went to leave a jackal stole our cutlery bag. But luckily we found it by the river. We saw a few ostriches and small antelope. There were also some really friendly birds! We also saw lots of quiver trees. We really liked the Richtersveld.

 

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