Richard’s Bay, South Africa

April 17, 2008

We arrived early in the morning after a memorable day in Lesotho. Located on the northern coast of SwaZulu-Natal, Richard’s Bay is home to factory and plant...one after another. Exports include iron ore, titanium oxide, zircon, coal, aluminum, granite, ferrochrome, paper pulp, woodchips and phosphoric acid. It is a growing and busy place...very industrial.

After my adventurous day in Lesotho I needed a quiet and calming day so I choose to visit Lake Lucia for a relaxing and enjoyable “curise”. It was exactly what I needed.

My friend, Louise, rejoined the ship after her days with her Cynthia. It was nice to see her and share our different adventures with one another as we rode through the country side toward the lake. For more than an hour and a half we passed thousands...millions!!! of eucalyptus trees. Our guide told us that they plant over 300,000 trees a day! A day! Do I believe it? I don’t know...but I do know that I have never seen so many trees in such planned patterns. It was really very pretty....like a three-dimensional quilt of greenery!

We boarded small boats, and with the aid of a most enthuastic “captain’ and guide slowly made our way along this river? Lake?...actually estuary! to explore African wild life! We encountered several “pods” (some say “bloats”....I will have to research that!) of hippopotamus. What exotic animals these creatures are. Appearing very docile as they lounge around in the brushes and soak in the shallow waters, these huge animals are deceiving, for indeed they are the most vicious of all African animals and are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal. This is doubly surprising when you understand that they are vegetarian...they only kill humans who are invading their very private territory. We were particularly intrigued with one group of some twenty-five females and one very large and very busy male.

Equally exciting to see were the large numbers of very large crocodiles. These exotic animals were everywhere. Couple them with the throngs of birds (there are apparently over 500 species of birds in the area!) and you can imagine the day we had. Very natural....very easy....very pleasant.

Now it’s back to sea and on to Reunion?????? Stay tuned