27 August 2010

Cape Vidal

My time at St Lucia is whizzing by.  The day starts at sunrise and ends long after sundown!  There is so much to see, do and photograph and my evenings are filled with editing and deleting some of the hundreds of photos I manage to take each day. 

Megs and I spend our weekends hanging out at a cafe called Illys where we splurge on English breakfasts and coffee, admire the photos of African wildlife on the walls, and catch up with our blogs & emails.  The staff get to know us well and and point us to our own ‘reserved’ table at the back when we walk in, the only table that is close to a power source in the cafe.  We split our time between cyberspace and enjoying the outdoors and break up the writing by going on another Crocodile and Hippo Cruise.

Crocodile Centre

The cruises are the best way to view the hippos and crocs up close and a great way to spend a lazy afternoon.  We make friends with the skipper on the boat and after he hears we are volunteers Crocodile Centre with African Impact he allows us to stay on the boat all afternoon.  He is happy there are English speaking people on board as many of the other travellers on board don’t speak English.  

So we get 3 cruises for the price of one and although we don’t see many yawning hippos we get some great shots of the birdlife including  this Goliath Heron.

Crocodile Centre

We do a number of bush walks and game drives in iSimangaliso Park during week 3.  One of these Crocodile Centredrives takes us to a place called Cape Vidal where we see many different birds including some of the rarer birds such as this Narina Trogan.   

Once we get to Cape Vidal, we are rewarded with a chance to photograph birds in flight and try our hands at macro photography, capturing the crabs and other sea creatures that inhabit the rock pools. Crocodile Centre Crocodile Centre  Crocodile Centre

The Cape is also home to the Semango Monkeys, a Crocodile Centrevariety we don’t find down in St Lucia.  They make interesting subjects and we have fun trying to capture their funny poses before they take off into the trees.

The dune loop reminds me of our dunes in Australia except that 4 wheel driving on the dunes is strictly off limits here!Crocodile CentreThe park is also home to many baboons who are far more aggressive and dangerous than most other primates.  We are lucky to see a troop run across the road and snap lots of pictures of these animals in motion.Crocodile Centre

Each drive into the park is vastly different from the last and while you may see very little life on a cold and breezy day, if the weather happens to be hot and sunny there will be many animals close to the roadside.

On our last drive into the park in Week 3 we get just such a day.  Crocodile CentreThe hot weather has brought many animals out of hiding and we get close views of many kudu, waterbuck, bushbuck and reedbuck.

 

Crocodile Centre

However, our best sighting in the park has been of the white rhino.  We count a total of 9 rhinos in the park and our most delightful sighting is that of a mother and her baby. Poaching for rhino horn has made this mammal one of Africa’s most endangered species.  I heard on the radio that about 160 rhino had been killed in this area and there is mention of removing the rhino’s horn to keep them safe from poachers.  A terrible remedy to save their life and I hope it doesn’t have to come to that for this majestic mammal. 

Crocodile Centre

The term ‘white’ rhino does not refer to the colour of the rhino’s skin but rather it is a Dutch word that refers to the size (wide) of the rhino’s lip.  The white rhino is more docile than the black, is a grazer and is often found in the open plains munching on grass, while the black rhino is a browser and far more prone to charging.   We’ve got some great memories of iSimangaliso and as we say goodbye on our last run for the week we scan the darkening park for a Big Cat! 

Crocodile Centre

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  ~Henry David Thoreau

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