Category: FIRE as a single. (Page 8 of 18)

WHAT a day!

Today was a truly memorable day. I fulfilled a goal and had an adventure.

We had an early start for the morning cruise. By 6:30 we were on the boats to see what we could find.

A crocodile!

The first real thing was a tiny bronze-backed snake. I have no idea how the boatman saw it in amongst the reeds. It’s non-venomous. Now I know why snake beans are called what the are. It was just as long and thin.

An egret. I love how they always look so clean. Remember how the guide in Arnhem Land last year said that not even crocodiles would eat them, because they’re nothing but feathers and bones? 😂

We saw another stalk billed kingfisher. I like these, because even I have a good chance of spotting them.

Female black hornbill.

Long tailed Macaques.

Black and Red Broadbill. We were on our way back to the lodge for breakfast when one of us asked if we could stop at the nest again. We’d see it, but the bird flew away when we approached, so no one got a photo. 

It turned out that the timing was perfect… not a minute later, someone in the boat yelled out “Otters!” 

The boatman instantly jumped off the gas and swung the wheel. We reversed past a clump of reeds that was in the way.

“Even the boatman is excited!” said Sarah.

The boatman wasn’t the only one. Ever since I missed out seeing wild otters at the floating village in Canada, I was keen to see them. 

I never dreamed I’d see wild otters in Borneo. What a wonderful surprise.

“It’s very rare to see otters on the riverbank,” said Sarah. “Usually, they stick to the swampy areas further inland.”

The other boats crowded around us. Sarah started making a squeaky/ chirping sound to keep the otters where we could see them. 

They were so curious. They kept poking their heads up over the riverbank to check us out. I kept craning my neck to see more of them. We were mirroring each other!

Finally Sarah said, “Take your last photo. My mouth is getting tired from calling!” So we left them. 

Honestly, I can’t believe how amazing my life is. 

Otters in Borneo!

After breakfast, we had a trip to the Gomantong. Cave. As we were waiting for the boats, David heard a ‘thump!’ as something hit the ground from up a tree. 

“Is that a snake?” he asked. The jury was out, until it moved its head when he walked up to it. It’s the same sort of snake as the one we saw in the reeds earlier, so now you have a clearer look at it.

We put on our hard hats, donned our disposable gloves and set off for the cave. You wouldn’t believe that this hill is completely hollow, would you?

I wasn’t expecting much from this tour. We were warned about the stench of the bat guano, which can be so strong that people take one step inside the cave and change their minds about going any further. 

There’s the possibility of getting peed on by a bat or a swallow, which made some people I saw wear rain ponchos over their clothes. 

That all didn’t bother me much. I’ve always had a bad sense of smell, and if I got peed on, we were going straight back to the lodge so a change of clothes wasn’t far away.

What did bother me a bit was the cockroaches.

Disgusting, dirty things. They make nests in the guano and then swarm all over the railings, the steps and the walls of the cave. Sarah issued us with disposable gloves so we could use the handrails. The steps were somewhat slippery from the droppings.

But it was worth it. Video taken by Elizabeth.

I didn’t find the guano smell too bad, but then again, if I could smell it clearly, then it must have been strong.

The cave itself was spectacular.

The caves were discovered by foreigners in the 15th century,when Chinese traders discovered the birds nests in here. They are still harvested today.see the long ladder? A few men brace the bottom while one brave soul goes up to collect the nests.

“Geese, you’d want to make sure you had your mates down there holding you up!” said Gary. “Imagine if you owed someone money??”

They weren’t wrong about the cockroaches. The place was full of them. I’ve never been more glad to be wearing gloves.

You wouldn’t want to lean against the wall for a rest. I wasn’t expecting constantly moving my feet because I didn’t want one to start crawling up my leg.

But, as I said, this place was worth it.

It didn’t take long for us to walk the circuit. I was in the front group, as usual, so I missed the drama of when a local woman who was in a hurry, tried to push past some of our group on the slippery stairs. She slipped, fell on her back and cut her arm open.

Imagine. Not the sort of place where you want to be courting an infection. Someone dabbed her cut with tea tree oil, but she left with her back and bum covered with bat, swift and cockroach poo. 

Stay safe, people!

After lunch we had a few hours to spare before the next boat trip. I thought I’d spend the time blogging and reading, but instead I had a solid two hour nap. I must’ve needed it.

As I left my cabin to get to the dock, I glanced at the sky. “Hmmmm, looks like rain,” I said. I wasn’t wrong.

As we were enjoying afternoon tea, the rain began to. Soon, ‘thunder, bolts of lightning’ joined in. 

We would be out on a body of water in the middle of a storm. What could possibly go wrong?

Eventually, all but one of us set off. I had a rain poncho on, under my life jacket, and I was sheltering my precious phone near my chest, where I hoped it wouldn’t get wet.

The likelihood of seeing anything was low, but we all had hopes of spotting the Pygmy Elephants. FOMO is a powerful thing.

The rain was bucketing down. I absolutely hate getting rained on. 

This proboscis monkey looked as though it felt the same.

I wasn’t taking pictures of everything we saw, because the rain was getting very heavy, the light was dark and I love my phone. But when a Hornbill is silhouetted, you take the shot.

Would you believe it? As we were all snapping away, its mate flew up!

After 5his coup, Sarah asked if we wanted to go back now. We didn’t, so off we went again. 

This time, we turned up the river where the elephants are sometimes seen.

The rain got heavier. I tucked the poncho around every bit of me I could reach, lowered my head and let the rain fall. The boat would stop if anyone saw anything was, I reasoned. It’s not as if I ever spot much. I’m very unobservant.

I wasn’t taking pictures correct. The boat slowed to a stop. I shook the water from my poncho hood and saw this family of long tailed macaques crossing the river.

This one was showing off his acrobatics, walking upside down nearly the whole way.

Sarah told us that we were turning back now, after we took photos of these wet monkeys. The rain was getting heavier and the animals would be hiding away.

The three boats sped back towards the lodge. I was in the last boat.

We were zipping along, me hunched over under my poncho, when our engine died. No coughing or spluttering… it stopped dead. 

I waited for it to start again. Nothing. Meanwhile, the other two boats were merrily heading over the horizon.

The rain poured down. Elizabeth tried to call Sarah but she had no reception. The boatman got through to her voicemail and left a message. As this is happening, the boat is quickly heading downstream.

The rain start3d to ease up, so I emerged from under the poncho. I decided people needed cheering up.

“So who are we going to eat first if we don’t get rescued?” I asked. Then I realised.

“Shit. It’s going to be me. All of the rest of you are married.”

“Aw,  maybe we should eat the youngest person. They’ll be tender,” said Gary.

I looked around at them. I was well and truly screwed.

“That’s me,” I said.

They laughed. “It’s not looking good, Frogdancer!” said Ken.

I fished out the little whistle attached to the life jacket and blew it. 

“We’re SURE to be saved now!” I announced.

We swept around the corner of the river and the place where the boats would come was lost to sight. It was amazing how quickly the river was moving.

When a boat swung around the corner, we cheered. “I told you the whistle would work!” I said.

A rope was quickly slung between the two boats and off we went. All was going well until the rope snapped. 

Just as we were about to head off into the wide blue yonder again, another boat turned up and positioned itself beside us. We made a mid-river transition from one boat to another.

Then we were off again.

The rain had stopped and the ride home was lovely. At least, it was for me. Ken has straight into a puddle of water on his chair, so he wasn’t all that comfortable. 

“At least it isn’t warm, Ken!” said Jenny.

I’m ending the day very happy to have seen otters in the wild, and to have survived my almost certain brush with death. 😀

Tomorrow we leave the lodge and head back to civilisation.

Dad joke of the day:

Why should you never date a baker?

Because they’re too kneady:

Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. I went in thinking that orangutans were the only Borneo species for me. How wrong I was.

The sanctuary is surrounded by palm oil plantations. An abandoned one was bought, with plans to get it up and running again as a working farm.

One of the staff was cooking pancakes one day, when a proboscis monkey ran in and stole all the pancakes. For some reason known only to themselves, the new owners decided to turn it into a sanctuary. This property has one important feature… it borders the mangrove swamp, which is where the monkeys prefer to sleep.

The Reticulated python and Clouded Leopard are their main predators. The proboscis monkeys have webbing on their feet, which enables them to (sometimes) outswim crocodiles.

They can jump 30 feet from one tree to another. This is a learned skill, with the babies trying to jump further and further. As they gain confidence, their jumps get longer. It takes around 4 years until they make the 30 foot leaps.

Playboy of Borneo. 

The males’ noses grow to 16 cm long, which allows the males to make loud noises. Whenever the group moves, the alpha male will call to make sure the whole group follows. The longer the nose, the more attractive the male is to the ladies. Their penises stay erect for 24 hours.

No comment.

They can’t eat sugar. If they do, it leads to gastric upset. The food the sanctuary feeds them are pancakes made from flour, water and cabbage.

They have a 4 chambered stomach, which digests leaves over 50 hours. They have a pot belly due to this.

Harem group, 13 to 50 members. One male, and the females.

Bachelor group… heaps.

He looks like a middle aged businessman on the train, staring at his phone, doesn’t he?

One of the males was trying to provoke the alpha male.You can hear the banging of it running across the roof, while the alpha male climbs up the tree and onto the roof to chase him.

After he landed on the roof, there was a huge kerfuffle, with thumping feet running, screaming and yelling. All the tourists went”ooooooooo” and raced to the other side, hoping to catch the action.

The winner appeared, looking mildly pleased with himself, gathered up his family and slipped back into the trees.

Female has a growth hanging from her. It started growing during Covid. They are vet checked and she’s doing fine. They are reluctant to perform surgery because they don’t want to let the animals get used to people. Then they won’t be wild animals anymore.

The babies are born with a blue face. It turns orange by around 2 years old. 

They live for 25 years in the wild. The rangers hardly ever  find bodies, because the monitor lizards clean them up.

These monkeys are absolutely terrific! I came to Borneo to see orangutans, but these are equally worth the trip. They were so entertaining to watch, and although they’re not the most attractive, they have an odd, quirky appeal.

Sarah’s story. Mother Muslim and father Catholic. They registered Sarah as a catholic and her siblings as Muslims, because the laws changed. Anyone marrying a Muslim must convert, and all their children must be registered as Muslim. (Her little brothers are catholic, and are having difficulty getting the government to change their official religion.)

Her parents divorced when she was 9 years old.

When she was a child, she lived with her mother in the poorest part of Borneo. People existed on rice, and to add some excitement to their diet, they added salt. She remembers going into the jungle with her friends to eat tapioca leaves, and when her Dad shot a deer, it lasted them a month. When she was in primary school, she had to walk for an hour each way to school.

When she was older, the kids went to live with her father in Kotakinabalu – the big city. There, they were exposed to all sorts of food.… fish, chicken, eggs, macaques, snakes and dog. He impressed on them the need to not waste food.

Dad fed them dog without telling them until they finished. The kids all cried, because they had a puppy. They all went to the bathroom and threw up.

Anyway, back to the trip!

We had a short boat ride across to the lodge, where we’ll be staying for 2 nights.

We were walking back to the lodge dining room and we saw a civet and a monkey having a go at each other. Sarah took this video. She was excited because she hasn’t seen one at the lodge during the day before. I was excited because I’ve never seen a civet before.

As we were getting ready to leave for the boat trip, word came in from the villagers next to the lodge that an orangutan had been spotted in an old nest. We raced over. Honestly, how would you ever know it was there?

The kids playing underneath the house were laughing at the crazy adults, I’m sure. People with binoculars could spot the orange fur in between the branches.

And then there were more civets! There were two of them in the tree.

Black hornbill. Zoom in.

Stalk billed Kingfisher. It took me ages to find where it was, which is crazy when you consider how colourful it is. Anyway, I got there in the end.

Rhinoceros Hornbills. These are one of the Borneo Big 5 to spot.

Proboscis Monkeys in a tree. We counted at least 4 of them. If you see a tree violently shaking, it’s probably not the wind.

Baby crocodile. Sarah has a handy pointer to show people like me where the animals are.

Macaque monkeys.

As we were speeding back to the lodge, I spotted a blue snake in the water. We were past it before I could take a picture.

One last treat… Darters in the treee, with one spreading its wings.

We’re staying two nights at this lodge, which doesn’t have wifi. If there’s a break in transmission between posts, this is the reason why.

Dad joke of the day:

This is the fulfilment of a dream. I’ve wanted to see the orangutans of Borneo for I don’t know how many years. And today – here I am, walking quickly past this mother and baby while taking a quick snap. What a lucky pic!

You can see the stick that a ranger was waving in front of her. We all thought it was to protect her and her baby from stupidity humans, but we found out later that she likes to steal iPhones from people. She was casing the joint.

The Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary is a place that rescues orphaned and injured orangutans and rehabilitates them to hopefully go back to the wild. The orangutans are at the centre due to deforestation for palm oil and timber. . They like to eat the young shoots at the palm oil tree, which obviously causes problems with the farmers.

97% same genes as us. The people of Borneo call them “little cousins.”

Every day orangutans make a new nest . They wander 2kms a day, never far from food. They are 10 – 20 metres off the ground and it takes 15 minutes.

A mother and baby made a nest in a palm oil plantation. The farmer called the wildlife people, who came and tranquilised the mother. The baby thought its mother died. It cried, threw leaves at the wildlife officers and bolted for the jungle. Both of them were transferred to the sanctuary.

If you are caught hunting orangutans, it’s a fine of 50,000 ringgit (around 12,000 AUD.) Also 5 years in prison.

Baby orangutans stay with their mothers until they are 10. In the wild, they live for 60 years. 

They release the babies back into the wild after they reach adulthood.

These videos were taken through a one-way mirrored window, which has unfortunately made the colours a little wonky. This is a place where the young orphans learn to socialise with each other, under the careful supervision of their keepers.

We were given an hour to sit here and the time galloped by.

When the food was brought out, some of them were chill. Some shared… while this one raced away with food clutched in her feet.

I got very excited when I saw a black squirrel running across the rope leading to this platform. This makes 3 continents that I’ve seen squirrels in! It’s on the tree trunk to the left, doing its best to grab a snack without being seen.
Actually, me mentioning the 3 continents thing reminded me of when I was talking to a stupid American, who wouldn’t believe me when I said that seeing a squirrel was exciting for me, because we don’t have them in Australia.

” You must do!” the stupid American said. “Squirrels are everywhere.”

They went on and on about how every country has them, until I lost patience and snapped, “Ok, so how many wombats do you have in YOUR country?? Everyone knows wombats are everywhere.”

That shut them up.

I’m way zoomed in on these two, heading for the food through the jungle at the back.

Then it was time to head out to the outdoor feeding area.

There were many macaque monkeys there. I don’t know why this one was looking so distressed.

I like this shot.

There was only one orangutan mother and baby at the feeding spot. The rest were macaques. It was sweet when the keeper arrived with the food.

I love how the keeper almost absentmindedly helps the baby. It’s obviously something that happens a lot.

Then all of a sudden it got exciting. I was standing right at the front of where the feeding platform was, when suddenly we were all being told by keepers to stand away from the fence. At first we were reluctant to move, but when they said that a mother and baby orangutan were coming down the path, we all moved back as one to give them space.

It turned out that instead of wanting to walk down the path, she wanted to stick around. She and her baby ended up on the roof above our heads.

You’d better believe that I moved lickety split up and over to where I could see her peering down at us!

Not even 6 feet away.

They stayed up there for quite a while. Apparently, one guy on our tour keeled over and needed a wheelchair. I only heard about it at the end of the day. I was too busy watching these two.

Look at the colours.

So very cute.

Then as suddenly as she appeared, she decided to leave.

I was third on the path following them. We saw them both climb some ropes leading up to the tall trees. I was just in time to snap her swinging away.

This was only the first of four stops today, but I’ll pick up the story tomorrow. This was a wonderful experience in a year that’s been full of wonderful wildlife experiences. I’m a very lucky woman.

Dad Joke of the Day:

Day one of this trip was a huge travel day, but by 3pm I was in Sandakar, Borneo, meeting Sarah, our tour guide for the next 9 days, and sizing up the rest of the group. There are 29 people on the bus this time, and it looks as though I might be the only solo traveller.

Usually, I fly with no checked luggage and 2 carryon bags. For the first time, Malaysian airlines weighed my carryon. I was over 7 kegs, so I checked in my little suitcase. In the rush, I forgot to check if it was locked.

Imagine my relief when I got it back at the airport, when I saw that the lock was open but absolutely nothing had been messed with. Fortunate Frogdancer strikes again!

Some locals that I saw from the bus window when we came into town.

After I found my room and settled in, I decided to go for a walk. I bumped into a group of 3 couples who were travelling together, and so I joined them. Over drinks in a rooftop bar, they said they were part of a group of 6 couples who met when their kids were preschoolers.
They go travelling together, years after their kids have grown up and gone. This time, half of them wanted to see Borneo.

This is a predominantly Muslim place. Borneo is an island split into 3. We’ll be travelling in the part owned by Malaysia.

As were were walking along the harbour front, one of us saw a monitor lizard at the water’s edge. You can see its tongue, helpfully silhouetted against a piece of rubbish.
Sadly,Sandakan is very dirty. My room looks out across the harbour front, which would be lovely except for all the litter floating around in it. You wouldn’t want to eat at the local KFC. As we walked past it, the smell from the drains outside was absolutely putrid.

I haven’t seen a single dog, which isn’t surprising, given the high Muslim population. But there are cats. Not as many os in Zanzibar, but they’re here.

We went walking around. We went into a shop or two, but there was nothing I wanted to buy.

We ended up by the water again to have dinner. Sarah had recommended a place called Bistro 88, which served beer and good noodles. Dinner was $4 Australian, and I think the beers were $3 each. As a non-beer drinker, this will be another alcohol-free holiday for me. The wine here only came by the bottle and was $57 AUS.

When I got back, there was a guitar player down in the square below, singing loudly. Luckily, he sounded good, because I needed to sleep. There’s only a 2 hour time difference, but it was a long day. I drifted off with his voice in my ears…
Tomorrow – orangutans!

Dad joke of the day:

Yesterday we had a day at the resort, just to relax. This concept is something new to me – I never take holidays just to relax. But the day slipped by vey easily with reading, blog writing and a nap.
Today – Good Friday – is our last day of sightseeing before we start the long flight home. This is the day that we see what Zanzibar has to offer in natural surroundings.

We drove down to the southern part of Zanzibar, to the National Park, around 35kms from Stone Town. The ranger told us that Zanzibar is flat, with no rivers, lakes or mountains, just small streams.

The rocks that you can see in the path are actually outcrops of coral. This whole place is a thin layer of soil lying on top of a bed of coral. This area is a true wetland – dig a metre deep and you’ll hit water. Many of the trees are mahogany, though there are some huge mango trees as well.

We began walking through the forest in single file. For once, no one was talking. Suddenly, we were face to face with a couple of monkeys.

This is a Sykes monkey, a relative of the vervet monkeys we saw on the mainland.

His friend was sitting on the forest floor, so close I could almost touch him.

A little further along, we saw this millipede. According to the ranger, the millipedes are the safe ones. It’s the centipedes that’ll kill you.

We saw an anteater, or Elephant Shrew, but it was too far away to photograph well. We also saw a few crabs. This place is in between two seas, and the crabs move across from one to the other.

This is a big tree that has blown over. The ranger showed us how shallow the root system is, because of the layer of coral underneath, stopping deep root systems from forming.

A road divides the forest, and here was a bus, jammed to the gills with people. Even though Good Friday isn’t a Muslim thing, they take Government holidays from Tanzania, so Christmas and Easter are public holidays.

And then I got excited, because we came across a family group of the Zanzibar red colobus monkey. They have 4 fingers and no thumbs. There are 3,000 of them.

They eat leaf shoots, unripe fruit- not ripe fruit because they can’t digest sugar- they have a 4 chambered stomach.

Many more females than males. One dominant male.

The baby moved off on its own, so here it is, almost directly above my head. I was pretty safe … I saw it pee a few minutes earlier.

Peaceful and quiet in their group. “ They lead a good life.” 

They look after their babies for 20 months.

We passed this one without realising it, and I only saw it when I glanced back and caught the red of its coat.

This Sykes monkey was close enough to touch, if you were silly enough to try. There was a pool of water in the branch and it was hanging upside down drinking from it when we first walked up.

Like this.

Then it was back in the van to go and see the mangrove swamp.
Honestly, this part was pretty boring, but I took a few nice shots of people on the roadside along the way.

Either coming home or going to prayers.

Women collecting firewood. We have it so easy.

As we were getting back into the van after the mangrove swamp, which I won’t inflict on you, the village was having a get-together. The little girl in the yellow scarf, to the right of the frame, smiled and we waved at each other as I stepped up into my seat.

Have you ever heard of a butterfly farm?

18 years ago, a Scottish gentleman whose name escapes me, had the idea to create a tourist attraction using butterflies. Locals are paid for any cocoons they bring in, and this is subsidised by the money tourists pay for admission.

We walked into a big tent, essentially, and saw where they leave the cocoons, ready for the butterflies to break out and enjoy their 2 weeks of life.

They were very frustrating to try and photograph.

Beautiful, but constantly on the move.

Except for this one. It was having a rest.

The guide at this place led us to a little enclosure, saying, “ I have a surprise for you!”

OMG. Chameleons.

Look at his curly tail!

The guide put a grasshopper down so we could see how chameleons hunt.

Fantastic.

Then it was back to the resort. So far in 2025, I’ve seen rice paddies in Vietnam, Japan, Tanzania and Zanzibar.

Just before I fell asleep, Awaysu called out, “Wedding!”

He said Friday is popular for Muslim weddings, while Christians tend to get married on Sundays.

Annette and I collapsed and had a nap when we got back. The holiday is pretty much over. Tonight and tomorrow we’ll be hanging around the resort until 5 pm, when we’ll be picked up to go to the airport.

P

Zanzibar was a different experience than I expected. I didn’t know about its history before I arrived and it affected me profoundly. It is such a tropical paradise, yet for neatly a thousand years its people have been under the heel of one foreign government after another.

Even today, after they had a revolution in 1964 and, in theory at least, were able to self-govern, they joined forces with Tanzania because they knew they weren’t strong enough to stand alone.

The thing that got me? Zanzibar doesn’t have its own electricity supply. It all comes from Tanzania and is very expensive. At any time, Tanzania could flip the switch and Zanzibar would have no electricity.
(Except for the resorts, naturally. They have generators.)

These people have been held back by slavery, foreign governments and religion and they’re still not out from under. It’s made me sad.

But having said that, I’m very glad I came here. It’s a place very much off the beaten track and I’m pleased that I’ve seen it. I’m going home to a parent who is really struggling, health-wise, so having a few days of R & R is probably a good thing.
Unless something exciting happens tomorrow, I’ll see you when I get back!

Dad Joke of the day:

This is me in the morning, trying to juggle Wanda the water bottle, my iPad, reading glasses, and my phone while taking a photo of my toes in the Indian Ocean. Another sea I’ve paddled in.

Today we were driving back to Stone Town to see a bit more of the place. The resorts are situated well away from where the people live, so it’s a 45 minute drive before we arrive. There’s plenty of time to look at all of the activity happening by the streets as everyone shops, works and socialises as we drive by.

I don’t know… I definitely don’t want to live here, or to have my suburb magically transformed to be like this, but there’s a sense of community and liveliness here that out streets in Australia can’t match.

Our first stop today was Prison Island. We had to wade out to an ancient boat, which putt-putted its way across the sea to one of the islands half an hour away.

The sea was a glorious colour, and the boat was so small that it pitched and fell with the waves, every now and then splashing us. The weather was so warm that we welcomed it.

Prison Island.

Which is a misnomer because it was never a real prison.

It was originally given to two slave traders in the early 1900s as a place to school ‘bad slaves’, but when slavery was abolished in 1907 it was earmarked to become a jail.

More work commenced on buildings, but in the end it was decided that this place would be more useful as a quarantine station. Yellow Fever, Cholera and the Bubonic Plague were problems for East Africa at the time, so an island was the perfect place to quarantine people for a couple of weeks to prevent diseases from entering Zanzibar.

We had to land on the beach and wade ashore. My linen trousers were wet up to the knee, but with the warm weather I wasn’t too worried about it. There is work afoot to build a new jetty, but apparently it’s been going on for the last two years.

Now this was a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see giant tortoises here!
Elbow is the info sheet that details how this came about.

The numbers have grown since then.

I thought I’d have to wait until I went to the Galápagos Islands to walk among giant tortoises here, but it seems I was wrong.

They write the age of each tortoise on its shell. You can see one is 67 years old. The largest number we saw was 162.

It didn’t seem like a very exciting life for them, but on our way out, we witnessed a couple of them “telling each other bedtime stories “, as Awaysu phrased it.

As soon as the baby tortoises hatch, they’re taken away to a nursery like this, where they stay apart from the adults until they’re 15 years old. By then, they’re big enough not to be crushed underfoot.

It must’ve been hard for the bad slaves and the quarantined people to see Zanzibar so close, yet so far out of reach. There is another island nearby called “Grave Island “, where all the people who succumbed to their diseases while in quarantine were buried.

Incidentally, Covid was terrible here.

”Many, many people died,” said Awaysu. “Our leader didn’t believe in it, so he told us to go on as usual. Them people started dying. More and more. He eventually died from it, which is why Tanzania has a female prime minister. She was the vice. I kept my family at home and we all stripped our clothes if we’d been outside and we stayed away from people as much as we could. We were ok.”

Then it was back to Zanzibar, where we went to a harbour-side restaurant where I had the best calimari I’ve ever had.

Afterwards, some of us wanted to stay put and drink Irish coffees and watch the world go by, but not me. I can sit and do that at home.
So our Sisterhood Travels guide stayed behind, while 3 of us walked across the road with Awaysu to have a look at the shops inside the old fort.

Most of the stall holders here were widows, or single mothers, so we did our best to support them.

We were back in time to jump on our boat for the sunset cruise. It’s a sumptuous ride, don’t you think?

When we first set off, it was driven by an outboard motor. But once we were out in the harbour proper, the sail was unfurled, the motor was switched off and we glided along in silence.

Well, almost. We could hear the boys singing as they were jumping in the water, and we had a couple of musicians on board.

Awaysu translated what the songs were about.

”This song is about heartbreak. His girl has gone away and he’s sad.”

” This song is the opposite of. He’s in love and everything is fine!”

Sylvana, our Sisterhood Travels guide, tried her hand at the drum.

”It’s so hard!” She said. “Before you start, you think you’ve got a good sense of rhythm, but once you begin, you discover you’re hopeless!”

This is what we must have looked like to anyone else on the water.

Ideally, the sunset cruise would have started later and gone for longer, until the sky really got dark.

But the call for prayers starts at 6:30 pm, so the men had to be back on land by then.

Still it was a fun experience, and we were back in time for a lateish dinner at the resort.

Tomorrow is a free day at the resort. I’m planning a reading and writing day.

Dad Joke of the Day:

I wasn’t going to post anything today, because it’s a travel day to Nairobi airport to Zanzibar, but some photos just beg to be taken.

Dad Joke of the Day:

We left the lodge at 6:15 this morning for a game drive. I was only hoping for a nice sunrise and a good view of Mt Kilimanjaro, and I got both. 

Hippo. He’s out later than usual because the sky is cloudy and it’s good for their delicate skins. When they’re grazing – and the eat 35 kgs a day – they go singly.

In the water, they gather together in a dominant male and their harem. 

They tend to kill people because they regard them as predators. Villagers in the area are at risk every time they go to get water.

Blacksmith bird. He was going crook at us. They are ground nesting birds.

Hyena. They tend to live around 12 years of age in the wild.

Young are born fully developed. Gestation period is 3 months.They are matriarchal, like elephants.

This one is a nursing female, who is headed back to the tree line to feed her cubs.

She has something that looks like a penis but is in fact her clitoris. Lucky girl! That’s a clitoris anyone could find!

When hyenas greet each other, they lick each other’s genitals.

The collective noun for hyenas is a cackle.

I’m with Martin, my favourite guide, this morning. He has lots of good fun facts.

Mt Kilimanjaro is the tallest free standing mountain in the world.

Look at how clear she is! I’m a very lucky woman.

Martin said that we were lucky to see both peaks. People come here for 2 nights like we have and she’s usually wreathed in clouds.

Common Kestral. This is a small bird of prey. This is one for all of you twitchers out there.

It was still very boggy. Martin had to drive carefully every now and then to avoid getting bogged.

The people who stayed behind to sleep in have missed out. It’s going to be a cloudy day and Kilimanjaro will be hidden.

Grants gazelle. We were all set to take photos when a jeep drove past and set them off. Julie shared this shot with me. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time!

A rumble of jeeps.
I just made that up.

Then OMG.

Elephants. Many, many elephants. This is what this place is famous for.

Martin saw which way the herd was going, so he drove to where they’d cross the road. We parked where we’d be able to get a good view. As we watched, the first thing we noticed were the babies.

Then more and more elephants joined the group. For a couple of minutes they stopped, while the smallest baby had a quick snack, then on they came.

As you can see, the herd split and they were crossing at both ends of the jeep. You can see the baby cross in the middle of this clip.

It was like a silent grey stream. It was magical.

I’m sorry, but elephant babies are irresistible.

This one must’ve had an argument with the missus, because it headed on up the road by itself.

A massive bull elephant was the last to cross.

And off they went, while we headed back for a late breakfast. We go out again at 4…

If I was a twitcher, I would’ve loved this last drive.
Sadly, though I like birds as much as the next person, I like mammals more. Still, it was interesting. I’ll only show some of the birds we saw.

White faced whistling ducks, Greater egret and Goliath Heron. The Goliath heron on the left is 1.5 metres tall.

10 years ago all of this was flat bear land. The difference is possibly caused by tectonic plates shifting. Rain and water from Kilimanjaro top it up.

White-faced Whistling Ducks.

Greater Painted Snipe. 

Very rare bird. It’s only the second time Martin has seen it. He was excited! You know it’s a special occasion when the guide takes out his camera.

Flamingos. A flamboyance of flamingos. These seem pinker than the ones we saw in the crater.

I don’t know how they can contort themselves like this, but they seem comfortable.

Water thick-knee bird with chicks.

I’m only including this one because of the silly name it has.

We were driving around looking at birds, and to be honest, I was getting a bit bored. I let my eyes drift over the water and then I saw something. A hippo! Now we’re talking!

They were too far away to photograph well, as you can see, but we could hear the sounds they made as they were breathing and snorting to each other.

The Blacksmith bird with eggs. She was right beside the jeep and she wasn’t happy we were there.

Hippo, baby and Egyptian Geese.  I know that it could be almost anything, but trust me— it’s a hippo.

Female impala with a small bird on her back, getting rid of fleas and ticks.

We drove around for a while as the sun began to set.

But Kenya gave us one last gift…

As we arrived back at the lodge, Mt Kilimanjaro showed her face one last time, as if to say goodbye.

Tomorrow is a travel day back to Nairobi, where half the group fly home to Australia and the rest of us fly to ZANZIBAR.

Dad Joke of the Day:

So I may have bought this on the way out of Tanzania. The artist has glued a piece of fabric on the canvas where the lion is and has crinkled it up, so it’s a little bit 3D.

It’s HUGE. I’m not sure how I’m going to get it back to Australia…

The place we’re staying at is very luxurious, but they have monkeys and baboons on the grounds. We were warned not to leave our doors open. I sat outside to blog, leaving the front door open behind me. This little guy was about to walk straight past me and into the room, as brazen as you like!

I think we’ve been spoiled so far on this trip. We drove back to Kenya today, and we’re staying in a luxurious lodge right in the centre of a game park renowned for its large herds of elephants and gazelles.

Unfortunately, it’s been raining for the past few days, so the animals have all moved higher up the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro.

We drove slowly around for a couple of hours with pretty slim pickings.

Hyena walking after some cranes.

Jackals appeared out of nowhere, right behind the hyena.

Another hyena was nonchalantly walking, even crossing the road close to the jeep. 

The cars didn’t seem to bother him at all.

As we were during, we saw two elephants walking across the immense plain. As they got closer, we noticed something.

The back bull elephant had only one tusk.

“They lose them sometimes when fighting,” said Nickolas, our driver. “Once they lose them, they never grow back.”

As we drove, there was a gap in the clouds and we could see snow on the mountain. We stopped to take pictures. This might be the best view we have of Kilimanjaro, who knows?

Then as we watched, the clouds began to move.

Can you believe that in the space of 3 weeks, I’ve seen both Mt Fuji and Mt Kilimanjaro-and they’ve both been clear?

And to think I thought this drive would be a fizzer!

Then, as the moon looked gorgeous…

…a hippo appeared. They come out of the water at night to graze.

An owl was sitting in the grass. I took this…

… but look what you can see once I zoomed in. I’m so glad I bought this phone!

Later, when we were all in the bar having pre-dinner drinks, a monkey suddenly jumped on the table and started stuffing his face full of peanuts. He was going for his life, because he knew he’d be chased away. He was salty about it, standing up on the roof behind us to intimidate us.

Tomorrow we have to leave at 6:15 for an early morning game drive.

Dad Joke of the Day:

At 8 am we were driving towards the famous Ngorongoro Crater. We were up so high we’ were driving through clouds. The crater was filled with mist.
The whole crater is a protected place for the animals.

2.5 million years ago there was an eruption 

Largest unbroken crater. No girafffes or impala have..

220 square kilometres and 20 kilometres in diameter.

The first things we saw, on the very steep road down, were zebras and warthogs.

We saw a buzzard in a tree.

Bustard. Most of the time they don’t fly.

We were down by the lake, looking at some flamingos, when all of a sudden Houth said, “Get down!” and the jeep started reversing. One of the other drivers had see a Servil Cat’s head poke up out of the grass.
We sat there for what seemed like ages…

… and there it was.

A little while later, it gave up trying to hide and it strolled out.

Here are a couple of Grey crowned cranes doing a courtship dance. They look like synchronised swimmers here, don’t they?

Just down the road, we saw these lions basking in the morning sun. Then, while we were admiring the lions, Houth put his binoculars down and said, “Rhino! Get down! Hurry!”

omg. We saw rhinos from a LONG way away on our first game drive, but I wasn’t expecting another sighting. They’re notoriously difficult to spot.

Black Rhino. This is the most rare, and is very endangered. While we were there, the rangers showed up. The rangers keep an eye on the rhinos, making sure no one is harassing them. Every rhino is tagged, meaning the rangers can keep a constant eye on them.

We stayed watching him for ages. He lay down under a tree forever, then just as I was wondering why we were still there, he got up, started walking in a clearing and I got this shot.
My sister and Mum were visiting Dad in the hospital while I was watching the rhino, so I sent her this shot.

We kept telling Houth that we wanted to see a leopard. I don’t think this cuts the mustard, though!

Elephants. There were heaps of them, right beside the road.

We could hear them breaking branches and eating. Also making low noises to each other. There were a couple of babies and their mothers were keeping them between them, away from us.
As time went on, more joined them.

This one puffed out her ears at exactly the right time.

Newborn gazelle, only minutes old. Houth says that the mother will hide the baby in the tall grasses nearby, then leave for a while to draw the hyenas away. The baby won’t move until she returns.

They prefer to give birth around midday, because the liquid from the afterbirth will dry quickly. Eagles are also a worry.

We can hear the sound of the baby chirping to her.

Zebras looking for predators. Together, they have a 3360 degree view.

When an elephant reaches its last set of molars, he or she will isolate themselves and stay near food to preserve their teeth. This elephant is old, maybe 60 years old. He will be here until he dies.

Elephant graveyard myth came about because the old elephants die near water, then floods come and wash all the bones downstream to one spot. People assumed the elephants walked here to die.

Mother and baby hipppo.

We ended up seeing 9 Black Rhinos! Houth says we’re very lucky. These ones were a lot further away.

Flamingos.

Just all having a natter and walking along. I love them.

They’re so beautiful, with their backwards knees.

Elan. The largest antelope. They’re very delicious, apparently.

We were looking to take pictures of something else, but this guy was standing, definitely keeping an eye on us. He didn’t move a muscle until we left.

At lunch time, we passed by these two. It looked like they were having a day at the beach.

If you zoom in, you can see how close the lions and the wildebeest are to each other.
“The wildebeest definitely know that the lions are there,” said Houth.

Isn’t this just like a painting? We were heading off to a picnic place at a lake full of hippos when we saw jeeps clustered together. Always a dead giveaway that there’s something to see.

These two lions were the last animals we saw in the crater. How funny are they?

On our way back, we stopped to have an hour’s long walk along the rim, accompanied by two rangers toting stun guns. This came as a rude shock to me, as to me, walk are only fun if there’s a dog with you. However, the others all assured me that it was on the itinerary right from the start. (I really should start reading that thing.)

I have to admit, it was worth it for the view down into the crater. If you ever get the chance to come here, grab it with both hands!

Just to prove that it’s really me here.

WHAT a trip I’m having!

Dad Joke of the Day: