Date: Feb 6, 2007
Location: Richards Bay, South Africa
Next Port: Maputo, Mozambique, Feb. 8
Quick Summary: Garrick Utley’s second lecture, our arrival at Richards Bay and a scenic cruise on the St. Lucia Estuary to see the hippos made for another enjoyable day in South Africa.
Report: We were able to get our workouts in before Garrick Utley’s very interesting lecture and Q&A session on “America and the World.” Over his career, Garrick reported from 70+ countries and lived overseas many times and offers an interesting perspective.
We’ve enjoyed the cruise up to Richards Bay from Cape Town especially because we are hugging the shore and seeing large vegetated dunes, beaches and passing boats and birds. So far, the Indian Ocean has been very smooth.
Capt. Dag did a 180 at the end of Richard Bay’s main shipping basin and then backed the Voyager into our spot between two ships, just as if he were parallel-parking a car.
After clearance, we headed out on the buses for a 5-hour tour of the St. Lucia Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the 1-1/4 hr. bus ride, Margit, our guide, provided excellent commentary. The deep water port here is fairly new and the surrounding area is booming. Though this province is South Africa’s smallest, it is its most populous. The new industries are providing many jobs, as does agriculture. It’s the second largest port in the world for shipping coal. There is a huge aluminum plant where it is shipped into be smelted. Electricty in South Africa is much cheaper that other places. Log, lumber and wood chips are other important products. The latter mostly go to Japan. We saw many huge granite blocks that are destined for Italy to be fashioned into building materials, primarily for the US and the UK.
During our drive, we saw miles and miles of eucalyptus farms. The tree has been hybridized so that it grows extremely fast (and straight and tall) and can be harvested in 12-13 years. Sugar cane, pineapples and oranges are other huge crops.
This area receives abundant rainfall making it very lush and green. We saw many beautiful hills, valleys and rivers as we moved away from the coast.
Our two hour ride on the St. Lucia estuary was terrific. We were on aflat bottom, covered boat with about 35 people. We were able to walk around or sit on a small flat deck at the bow. We saw many birds…including the large African fish eagle, goliath heron (as well as other heron), kingfisher and Egyptian geese. We saw several crocodiles, but they were too far away and looked more like moving logs. It was late in the afternoon and cloudy so they weren’t sunning themselves on the banks. We did see some cape buck on the shoreline.
However, the greatest site was the hippos. We saw four large pods of these huge animals with small twirling ears and huge teeth, They would gather in clusters where they would sort of paddle or stand all together…ducking underwater and “yawning” from time to time.
We got back on the buses as it was getting dark and just before the whole area got hit by a beautiful thunderstorm.
We had a nice dinner in our room and then attended the first run showing of “The Last King of Scotland” in the conference room. Forest Whitaker gives a marvelous performance playing the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. (Karen found it quite violent and distressful, especially viewing it in Africa!)
We are looking forward to another full day tomorrow on our separate adventures in this beautiful land. Larry is going on a game drive and Karen will visit a Zulu village.
Karen and Larry
Photos of our cruise are available at the following web site:
picasaweb.google.com/larryworldcruise
Photos of our first day in Richards Bay have been added.
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