One week in paradise...well, the south coast at least? ;-)

As I told you last week, our family had a little brake away to the south coast (Uvongo) and we just arrived home today back from our welcome brake.

We had a great relaxing time…swimming and of course long walks on the beach…lots of family time…sleeping…playing cards and generally doing nothing.

It used to be that when you went down to the south coast that you got to see a hoard of
monkeys at least at some stage of your stay but this year I didn’t see any. Instead we were visited by a whole bunch of dassies who took a particular liking to the succulents growing in front of our flat and absolutely loved sunning themselves on the rocks just outside the gate on the path leading down to the beach.

The are
supposed to be fairly timid and skittish creatures but these ones have obviously been fed by some tourists in the past because they almost come when you call them and continuously try to sneak into the house. My dad eventually had to chase one out with a chair…to my mom they are just biggish rats, and will under no circumstances be allowed in the house!

We took a day to go and see the new(ish) aquarium at Durban called Ushaka Marine World. The whole thing is built to look like an enormous shipwreck and the tanks are set up so that you have excellent visibility of all the marine animals. I took more than a hundred photos but I’m sure you’ll swear at me if I had to put them all on here? So here are just a few of my favourites…

Other than that I also managed to drag the parents out to the beach one morning to see the sunrise with me. My plan was head down at about 5am and initially my mom said that she

wanted to come along, and then my dad also joined it but according to him the sun already starts rising at 4:30…so at 4:15 we set out for the rocks next to the jetty (only because we couldn’t get to the swim beach due to unforeseen – by us at least – high tide which had cut us off from it), and then sat round waiting for quite some time …until 5:18 to be exact for the actual sun to rise. It was still beautiful and well worth the walk and the early start. And once we saw it we calmly walked all the way back home and rewarded ourselves with a few more hours of sleep for our effort. Here’s a picture of the sunrise as seen at 5:18 on the rocks of Uvongo!

I have to admit that even after a fantastic week like this it’s great to be home. Tigger was waiting for me in anxiously and has not left my side for a second since we returned…poor baby.

Hope you all enjoy your week ahead – this week is the return of serious to my world, so next week’s update will not have nearly so many pictures I guarantee it!