We went camping. We went on a horse ride. My horse was called Tess. I loved it. I loved the campground because it had horses and dogs. I liked the 3 legged dog, he played stick with me. I touched a frog and it leaped away. It was really big.
We stayed the night at Inkosana Lodge as it was raining a lot. There was a really cool glow in the dark curtain in our room. There were also lots of books to read and I helped Mummy do a puzzle of Africa.
The next day we went to Monks Cowl where you can go for walks in the Drakensburg Mountains. The mountains are massive and look like a giant’s teeth. We didn’t have time to do a walk but we watched some ladies make baskets out of dried grass, plastic bags and copper wire. There was also a guy who was painting little clay/cement animals.
Then we went to Falcon Ridge. There were lots of birds of prey. They did a display where the birds would fly and then come back for food, even catching it in the air! We saw an owl, a noisy fish eagle that picked its food off the water, a black hawk and a peregine falcon. There were also some other birds in cages, like a cape vulture and a secretary bird. The falcon was my favourite because it went really fast next to us, (400km/hr!)
Did you know: The owls hunt at night and falcons hunt in the day, otherwise they would kill each other, because they are after the same food. The owl flies silently, and you could blindfold it, and it would still find its food because its hearing is so good. When a black hawk hatches, if there are 2 eggs, the first hawk will kill the second one. But fish eagles will keep all birds in the nest. When a hawk or eagle lands, they land feet first.
The next day we went to the Underberg Cheesery. They weren’t making any cheese but there were lots to taste. My favourite was flavoured with garden herbs. We learnt how they make cheese. Milk is mainly water, (87%). They get milk from animals, like cows, goats and sheep. Then they warm the milk and add a micro organism and then rennet that makes the solid bit of milk stick together. The solid milk is called ‘Curds’ and becomes the cheese. The watery milk is called ‘Whey’. They separate the curds and squish all the whey out. Then the cheese is put in a salt bath, dried and covered in wax to preserve it. They were yummy!
After this we went to the Nelson Mandela Capture Site. Nelson Mandela was the first black president of South Africa. He was in jail for 27 years! There was a timeline of his life and at the end of it was a statue of his face, it was made out of lots of poles so you had to stand in a certain place to see it.
While we were waiting for the Taniwha, we did a little road trip. We went to a place near Underberg called Khotso Horse Trails Campsite. On the drive there were lots of pot holes in the road, Daddy had to swerve them or he said we could break the hire car’s axle. Then it started to rain, that filled the pot holes up and made them difficult to see. It rained ‘rhinos and hippos’ and there was hail too. The hail was so hard we thought it might dent the car!
It stopped raining when we got to the campsite. We slept in our new tent and it was a bit strange to be so low to the ground. At night there was a big storm and there were lots of lightening flashes. There were also lots of frogs, some were really big!
The next day me, Vivi and Mummy went horse riding. My horse was called Baby Socks and Vivi’s was called Tess. Mummy had to lift me on my horse because I was too short. My horse was brown, with a black mane. I had to put my feet in the stirrups and hold the reins tight. To make your horse go you had to make a click click noise with your mouth. The horses were very good at following each other. We went up a big hill, and had to lean forward. It was a bit scary. Then we went through some fields and saw antelope in the distance. When we came back some of the horses rolled in the dry dusty mud. There was a foal too. It was very fun and I would like to do it again!
We went for a walk along the river. We were looking for the ‘Blues Pool’ but we walked too far and didn’t find it till we were on the way back. It was smaller than we expected. The walk was bad because I got scratched by some wild raspberry thorns.
The campsite had two border collies and a three legged dog called Boris. My favourite was the cat called Pebbles. But Vivi liked to throw sticks for Boris.
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Today we went to uShaka. This is an aquarium near the beach front in Durban.
When we walked in there was a big whale skeleton called ‘Misty’. It was a Southern Right Whale. It said it needed to eat 600kg per day – that is 6 Daddys every day! It eats really tiny animals called zooplankton.
First we saw a dolphin show. It was really good. The dolphins did lots of jumps and twists and flips. One balanced a ball on its head. We got to go really close and the dolphin nodded at us. Then it did a big jump and splashed us. We got really wet. We saw a dolphin’s belly button and the dolphin waved its tongue at us! I learnt that dolphins only sleep one side of their brain at a time.
Then we walked around the aquarium. We saw lots of fish, plus sharks, sting rays, eels, jelly fish, seahorses, lobsters, a small octopus and a big green turtle. I had lots of favourites. I liked a pineapple fish – when it opens its mouth there is a light inside to attract small fish. I also liked the coachmen, they are stripey. There was one fish that had decorations that looked like a china plate. There was also a unicorn fish that had a ‘horn’ at the top of its head. There was a really angry looking shark too.
We went to a penguin show, where we saw the keeper feed them fish. She said that you couldn’t look at the penguins to tell if they were boys or girls, the only way to tell the difference was to do a blood test. We also held a fake penguin egg. They were a bit smelly.
I had a slushy that made my tongue blue! It was a fun afternoon.
roaming.kiwi 