Livingstone, Zambia (By the kids)
14–17 мая 2025, Замбия ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C
On the 14th we were going to take a bus from Lusaka to Livingstone it was a long drive but the results were going to be great, Livingstone is where Victoria falls is. Victoria falls is actually the border to four countries, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana, there is a town called Victoria falls, that’s the place you go if you want to see it. In Livingstone you can only see %25 percent, but in Victoria falls you can see %75. The falls is the biggest fall in the world at 1,708 meters wide and 108 meters high, the local name for it is Mosi-oa-Tunya, it means the smoke that thunders. The reason for the name is because when the water hits the bottom it makes lots of mist that goes up very high, up to 400 meters, very high. I’ve explained the smoke bit but the thunders bit comes from the noise it makes, it is also a place where you can see a moonbow, it’s like a rainbow but it happens at night. The way it happens is that a full moon will reflect on the mist and cause it to happen, the special bit about it is that the colours are in reverse order. Victoria falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, these are the other, six Mount Everest, Harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Great Barrier Reef, Paricutin Volcano, Grand Canyon, Aurora Borealis. My plan is to try to see them all in my lifetime, it would be cool. There is so much spray from the falls that it creates its own rain forest, if you visit it without a rain coat you will get soaking wet (we made that mistake). The place is perfect for me because not only is it beautiful It also has rides like bungee jumping, flying foxes, canoeing, white-water rafting, zip-lining, and gorge swings over the Zambezi River. I’m doing zip-lining, the flying fox and the gorge swing. There are lots of animals around it like elephants, hippos and crocodiles (it’s a river). Okay, now all my facts are done (until I find more on the internet) so when we got to the bus station we hopped on our bus and started reading. When we were pretty close to Livingstone the bus just stopped, we were wondering what was happening. We just thought we were stopping for passengers but we waited there for a long time so we asked what was happening, bad news, we broke down. They tried to fix it but they couldn’t, it was getting late, then they told us that another bus was sent to help us. When that bus arrived it was 11pm, we were happy, and then we realised that they didn’t send another bus, there was already a bus going to Livingstone that we had to get in but it was a tight squeeze because there were already people on it. When we arrived there it was 12pm, we were all tired and wanted to go to sleep. Luckily, the hotel we are staying at sent a taxi over to take us there. When we got in the taxi it drove us there. we set up and went to sleep.
On the 15th we are going to go to the falls, remember we are only seeing %25 of it, when we were driving there, we saw the river and then at a certain point it dropped away and there was mist rising. Our first view of the falls, we couldn’t see much at that moment but soon that was going to change, when we arrived we went straight to the ticket office and then into the place where it is. When we went to a platform where we could see the falls and it was beautiful, it was very noisy and there was mist going up everywhere, but that’s one of the things that make it interesting. We kept walking, and we walked past a place where you rent raincoats, the mist was falling down on us and sometimes it’s soft then sometimes it feels like you’re in a thunderstorm. We kept going but then the rain it got too much, so dad went back to get some raincoats while the rest of us stayed somewhere dry(-ish). When we put the coats on we watched the waterfall, mum said they could stay there all day watching it, I could to. After that we went to a trail called the boiling pot, when we got to the end of the trail we figured out why it was called the boiling pot. It was a turn in the river, but the water was so fast that it smashed together and looked like a boiling pot. From where we were we could see a bridge that you go across if you’re going to Zimbabwe, it’s also where you jump if you’re doing the gorge swing or the bungee jumping, when we were there we saw them bungee jumping. “How do they think that’s fun” said Emma, then I though “how dose Emma not think that’s fun?” maybe because Emma’s smart and knows here boundaries, properly right, why do I think that’s fun? Maybe because I’m smart and don’t know my boundaries, right again. When we finished looking at stuff we went back up the trail then went out of the place and back to the hotel to (watch some TV) sleep.
On the 16th we went on a safari tour to see the white rhino, fact time: there are two species of rhino in Africa, guess what its name is, black rhino. The main difference between them is that the white rhino has flat and broad lips, they use it to help them eat the grass, the black rhinos on the other hand eat a diet of ticks and leaves have a pointed lip with a sharp hook. Another difference is that the black rhino is more territorial than the white one. There habitat is different too, the black rhino is found in thickets and dense brush while the white rhino is found in grasslands and fields. There was also a difference in their weight, White Rhinos weigh around 2300 Kg, and black ones weigh around 1700kg, white rhinos are the biggest ones in the world, and black rhinos are the third. Fact times over now. When we hopped in the vehicle we drove over to the national park and only about five minutes in we saw a whole herd of rhinos, fun fact: a group of rhinos is called a crash. We got a walking tour so (with a park ranger) we were allowed to walk over close to them but not to close because there still wild animals. The ranger asked if we want to have a picture taken (from a distance) and we said yes, we turned around to face the ranger (mum wasn’t that comfortable turning their back to the rhinos). When they took our picture we took our phone back and had a bit more of a look at them, then went back to the car and went off to look at other animals. When we kept going we saw a group of zebra, fun fact 2: a group of zebras are called a dazzle, the reason is because their stripes dazzle the predator. The guide told us that the way to tell a female to a male is the females have thick stripes on their butt then the males. After that we went to go to a place in the park near the river there was a bench where we could sit down. The guide brought some chips and soft drinks, mum and Emma don’t like soft drinks that just means more for me and dad. We ate all the chips and drank some of the soft drinks (not all though but I would have If I were allowed). When we finished we started driving back and then we saw a bunch of giraffe, fun fact: a herd standing of giraffes is called a tower and a group of running giraffes is called a journey . We had a look at them and then we went to the city centre because we wanted to go to the museum, it was called the Livingstone Museum, it was about the history of Livingstone (obvious). We had a look at it and then went to the hotel and slept.
On the 17th we were going to go to Zimbabwe, we didn’t have to fly there, we just had to get a ten minute taxi to the border and then walk across the bridge then show our visa, then you’re in. We didn’t go to the border strait away we went to a festival that we heard about yesterday. It was a bunch of tribes coming together and showing off their type of dancing. When the dancing started it was really cool there were also instruments too, some of them I didn’t even know what they were, at one point one of the dancers got Emma up on stage and got Emma into the dance Emma said “I was pretty scared but it was cool” when Emma came back we watched a bit more then hopped in another taxi. The taxi took us to the border, and then we hopped of and went to the passport check, then went to the baggage check then we were in Zimbabwe. When we got a taxi we went to our hotel and slept.
Andrew, the greatest thing in the milky way (the galaxy), Andrew, lover of milky ways (the bar), Andrew, best or worst bragger ever, Andrew… come on people, help me think, ok, ok, I’ll do it…
The end
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 14th we took a bus from Lusaka to Livingstone. We were meant to take one bus, but that bus broke down, so we took two buses. We had to wait on the side of the road for four hours. We arrived at midnight, so we were very tired. The person who owned the flat that we booked picked us up at MIDNIGHT. It was very nice of them to do that.
On the 15th we visited Victoria falls. We got drenched. It felt like the thunderstorm in Townsville. Sound: It sounded like a very big thunderstorm. The water droplets made very big sound waves. Feel: It felt freezing cold. We went through a bit, and then we got too cold that dad went back and got raincoats. See: the view was amazing. We could see the fall and the mist it was making. The water was making mist by slamming down so hard. After that we went down to the boiling pot. The boiling pot is where people go down and watch the water. From the boiling pot we saw people bungy jump off the bridge. “They are crazy!” I said, “I want to do that,” said Andrew. “How could you possibly want to do that” I said “because I’m crazy” said Andrew “that I can’t argue with” I said. Victoria falls is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.
On the 16th we went on a safari tour. WE SAW WHITE RHINOS. We have wanted to see a rhino and we did. We got close to them. There were five rhinos and one of them was a baby. Info: the white rhino has a square mouth, and the black rhino has a longer mouth. The reason the white rhinos have a square mouth is to eat grass, and the reason the black rhinos have a longer mouth is to get leaves off trees. We also saw giraffes, monkeys, buffalos and a big trail of ants. After that we went into town and saw an awesome dance show. We got me a new jumper and had lunch. We got Nshima. My favourite bit of the Nshima was a red sauce. It is a savory sauce that has onions in it. It was so good that I could live on that only. I loved it so much. Then we went to a museum, and the museum was about the history of Zambia. Then we went to a pub with live music.
On the 17th we went to a cultural music and dance festival. We saw drums, a xylophone, a trumpet and a baritone. We saw lots of colours. There were people that had big masks and people with tails and makeup. There was some guy that was dressed up as a rhino. I got picked to dance with some of the dancers. I was scared, shocked and happy. I was scared that I would mess up. I was shocked that I got chosen out of all the other people and I was happy that I was chosen because you had to be very lucky to. (Plus, it was fun.) after that we crossed the bridge from Zambia to Zimbabwe. Then we settled in our new flat and did blog.
Bye-bye people.
Emma (8 and a half years old)Читать далее
😂👍🏻 [Dada]
❤️❤️👍🏻 [Dada]
Lol avec Manon et Nathan y'en avais au zoo planète sauvage,mais avec moins d'espace 😔 [Dada]
Victoria falls, Zimbabwe by Kev and Mel
17–21 мая 2025, Зимбабве ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
Hello from Zimbabwe,
We arrived here on the 17th of May and will only stay here for 4 days. This is just a quick trip to see the other side of the Mosi-oa-Tunya fall (the smoke that thunder) and to do a few adrenaline activities for Andrew (and us too, but mainly Andrew!)
We are in Victoria fall, which is a small town just on the other side of the border from Livingstone in Zambia. This town is very much designed for the tourists who came here to see Mosi-oa-Tunya. You mostly see shop which sell local craft and places where you can book tours and activities and expansive restaurants!
One thing that make me angry is there is a lot of offers for cheetah or lion or elephant experiences. You get to walk a cheetah or take pictures next to a sleepy lion or feed and wash elephants… Really, don’t we know better. Is it how those animals are supposed to live? No! It is not!!!!
I understand that the people from country like Zimbabwe need money to get a better life and will sell what tourists buy. It is our job as travellers to not give money to this kind of activities. Go do game drives, find the animals in the wild, where you get the excitation and pleasure to find them and admire them where they should be! Please think twice about where you spent your tourist money, it matters to the welfare of animals. Rant over!
We arrived here in the afternoon, settled in the house we rented (with 4 people it is sometimes cheaper to get a house than a family room or a couple of rooms!). I got a migraine so rest for me, while Kev go to a shop to get some food, so we don’t spend too much money eating out as Zimbabwe seems pretty expansive. Kids and Kev watch a movie while I nurse my migraine in bed. It will be better by the morning.
The next day, I was all better. We went to see Mosi-oa-Tunya, from the Zimbabwe side. It is beautiful no matter which side you see it. You can see more from that side. There is a pathway that took you all along the fall (on the opposite side obviously). We got ponchos this time! Did I mention that Zimbabwe is expansive?! The entrance to the falls is more expansive and we paid 15usd (around 22 Australian dollars) to rent 4 ponchos with holes in them! Anyway!
We were still better protected than with nothing. We walked all the way, getting wet, admiring the fall: well, what you can see of it! Halfway, there was so much mist that we could not see the fall on the other side at all! This was, as on the Zambia side, a wonderful experience. The sound is still very present and make you realised the size of this beautiful landscape. This is no surprise that it is one of the wonders of the world.
After that we bought some postcards, bought a little more groceries (coffee and beer for Kev mainly!) and went back to ‘home’ to do some blogging and schoolwork.
The 19th was adrenaline day!
Andrew love zipline and activities like that. There is bungee jumping here, but you have to be 16, so he was very disappointed. But no worries, I found more activities he can do, and us too while we are at it (well some of them!). We started the day with a canopy tour, which is basically 9 smallish ziplines between trees on the side of the gorge on the Zambezi river. It was Emma’s first time doing ziplines. Up until now, she was very scared to do them. We talked about it several times and she agreed to try to do one. And she did all nine of them! It was a good thing to start with that, to ease her into it!
After that Kev and Andrew did a flying fox 120m high! You are on the horizontal, which make you feel like you are flying! It looks fun, but being scared of height, I didn’t try, neither did Emma.
The next activity, was the one Andrew was the most excited and scared about. The giant swing! You start on a platform 120m high, then step of it and drop for 70m and swing for around 90m. It looked terrifying! They were supposed to do it on their own, but at the last second, Andrew asked to do it as a tandem with Kev, which is completely fair! They got strapped together and they were off! I screamed when they dropped because it is something to see your son and husband dropping down like that! They had a great big smile when they came back up. Andrew was a bit shaky, but he loved it!!
The last activity was the zipline: 120m high, 425m long and going over 100km/h. Kev did it, then Andrew did it and then I was supposed to do it with Emma, but when she came on the platform and saw how high it was, she froze and there was no way, she was going to do it. I tried to talk to her, but the panic was in, and she couldn’t do it. And that was fine. Andrew was very happy to take her spot and do it one more time!!!
I will admit that I wasn’t that proud myself. It was high and scary, but the feeling of the wind and speed was awesome. I’m very glad I did it. It was also a nice moment to share with Andrew. I hope one day, I will do one with Emma.
After that, we got a couple of drinks to settle my jelly legs at the Lookout cafe, which is looking over this beautiful gorge on the Zambezi river.
We went back home after that for a bit more schoolwork, as the kids haven’t done much lately.
Tuesday the 20th, was a lazy day. We went in the town centre to post our postcards, went back to the Lookout café to pay for pictures from the day before. On the way, we saw elephants; normally when we see elephants, we are inside a car! More protected! It was a bit unnerving to be our small self on the other side of the road to a massive big elephant!! After that, we did a little bit more shopping (cheese, can’t live without, and yogurt) and went back to do blogging and a bit more work.
Wednesday the 21st we are flying to Namibia. A new country, a new adventure!
See you then!
Mel
18.5.2025. Today we're heading back to Victoria Falls, or as the locals call it Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means “the smoke that thunders”. I think that sounds way better than being named after a queen. They celebrate Dr Livingstone here, he apparently discovered the falls. Yeah, ok, “he” discovered it. All the locals who have lived here forever must have just been wandering past it with no clue as to what all that noise was. Some British missionary comes along and says “I found! It was me! I did that!” Probably got led there by the locals. Anyway, yay for Dr Livingstone. Ah that's right we visited the falls, this time from the Zimbabwe side. There's a lot more falls to look at on this side, though it was very misty and we didn't see that much in lots of places. The Zimbabwe side is also more expensive, costing $60usd more just to get in. Onto the falls. The Zimbabwe side apparently has 75% of the falls, so there was quite a lot to look at. We had hired ponchos again, way more expensive than the Zambia side, but we're glad to have them. We went out onto lots of viewing points, some we skipped, lots of mist so couldn't see much. We walked around to the bridge area and saw beautiful rainbows. We got another look at the boiling pot, from a different view point. We walked back past the entrance, to head up the river a bit. We found another viewing point, looking out towards “the devils cataract”. An area where you can see the falls and river, rainbows and water crashing. Mist, but not too much, rising up the walls of the gorge. It was in my opinion, the best spot to watch the falls, and we stayed there for quite awhile. We headed back to the entrance, bought some postcards, and exited. We walked back towards Victoria Falls (the town) and went into the supermarket. I needed coffee, badly. We bought some supplies and headed back to our stay. We then had a restful afternoon blogging. I had coffee now, so all were safe. I also bought some cans of Zambezi beer, made in Zimbabwe and pretty tasty. We then had a slow evening, and went to bed.
19.5.2025. Today is about ziplines. A small fortune was spent the other day for today's fun, and fun it was. We got picked up at our stay and driven to The Lookout Cafe, where Wild Horizons operate all their zipline business. We checked in, got marker on our hands to say what activities we're doing, harnessed up and set off. We started with a canopy tour, a series of ziplines spanning one point of the gorge. Emma had so far not been able to do ziplines, she was booked in and had been adamant she was going to do it today. There was a little hesitation, but she stepped off and did her very first ever zipline. So proud of my girl. Em even copped a rope across the face, that didn't stop her. Took some bark off her left eyelid, we got pictures to prove it. According to Andrew there were 9 ziplines all up, I never counted. After that we walked back, Andrew and I had our harnesses turned around and we did the flying fox. We walked back to the other side of the restaurant to where the BIG stuff was. We had to wait a little as there was other people, but no long. They have a gorge swing, Andrew and I had opted in on that. You get strapped up, walk out on a platform 120m high and step off, freefall for 70meters before swinging out, just above the water. I was going first, I was getting close to jumping, when Andrew asked if he could do it with me. Absolutely mate. We were supposed to do it by ourselves, but he recognised his limits and thought maybe he couldn't do it by himself. We got strapped together, and to 4 ropes, walked slowly towards the edge while getting instructions, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I can't explain the feeling properly, but it is something I have never experienced before. Thrilling, terrifying, exciting and unfortunately, over way too quick. Andrew was shaking just before we walked off, I felt bad about that and made sure to check on him as soon as I could. He was tucked in holding on tightly, but he was ok, talking to me straight after. I swore a fair bit, we caught a bit of that on camera. Would I do it again? Yes I would! Andrew tells me he would do it again to, not by himself tho. After the swing we had another zipline to do, this one a big one, 425m long and going over 100klm/hr. I went first, it was awesome and you got a fantastic view of the gorge. Andrew was next, he seemed a little worried, stumbled a little but was never not doing it. Mel and Emma were next, this is where it got too much for Em. Even with lots of encouragement from us and others, she couldn't do it. It was just too high and scary, she had found her new limit. Emma came back down, Andrew harnessed back up and went for a second ride with Mel, he was super upset about that. Mel was happy not to do it alone. I spoke with Emma, who was very upset with herself. I reminded her she had already pushed her limits today and done something she'd never done before, and that we were super proud of her. We watched Mel and Andrew do their zipline, Mel screamed the whole way just about. When we were all done, we headed back to the office and looked through all the photos and videos they had taken of us. We didn't know they did this, and had left most of our money and wallets back at the stay, the website said not to have anything in your pockets you're not willing to lose. We sorted out what we wanted and organised to get a pay link through WhatsApp. After that we headed to the restaurant, a couple beers and wines, drinks for the kids and a plate of chips and we were done. We got dropped back at our stay and had some down time. We had a late lunch I cooked, did some blogging and schoolwork, then later watched a movie and went to bed.
20.5.2025. We've got postcards to send, after breakfast we went for a walk. We found the post office, had a mini heart attack when they said $43usd to send 7 bloody cards, have told you Africa isn't cheap for tourists. Anyway, got that done, now off to where we did all the ziplines yesterday again. They were going to send us a link to pay, but we thought eh, we're out anyway let's just walk. We were nearly there, just a short dirt road to walk now and we were there. Just one thing, not far from the road were 4-5 elephants. I don't know how close is too close to an elephant, but I wasn't ready to find out. We stood in a little market area and watched them. They moved a little further away and some other people started walking through, so off we went. Once at the office, we sorted out which photos/videos we wanted, payed and made our way back. Now blogging and schoolwork while I make lunch. Nothing else planned for the day, dinner later, that's about it.
21.5.2025. Our last day in Zimbabwe. We packed our bags and got dropped at the airport.
KevЧитать далее
Victoria falls, Zimbabwe by the kids
17–21 мая 2025, Зимбабве ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
Hello (English), Bonjour (French), Hola (Spanish), Hallo (German), Hej (Danish), Dfhsfkh (Andrewish), now that’s enough hellos, LETS GET ONTO THE BLOG, my blog, not anyone else’s, mine, only mine, mine, MINE, MMMMMIIIIIIIINNNNEEEE!!!!!!!! Now read.
On the 18th we woke up in a hotel and made some breakfast (we have a kitchen), we made scrambled eggs on toast. When we finished it we got a taxi (mum edit: we walked!) and went over to VICTORIA FALLS, that’s right, were going to look at it from the other side, we were going to see %75 of it. It was going to be huge, when we saw it on the Zambian side it already looked huge but now its going to be even bigger. When we got there hopped out paid to get in, then got our raincoats (not making that mistake again) but it cost 15 US DOLLARS to rent four raincoats, expensive. When we went in dad said we better get wet because we’ve paid already and we can’t get our money back. When we went to the first look, IT WAS AMAZING, the view was beautiful, the water was pouring over at incredible speed, guess how much was going over per second, around 5000 cubic meters, amazing. The peak amount of water that has gone over in one second is 16,990 cubic meters, 6000 tons, in other words, a lot. When we moved to the next look out and I looked amazing, the mist had cleared and the water was pouring over a tree, the perfect photo opportunity. We went to all the lookouts and it was lovely, there was one where we couldn’t see the water fall but we could see the river, the mist and the bridge, plus a couple of rainbows. That one was one of the best views, we even saw someone jump (bungee jump) of the bridge. When we went back to the hotel we made dinner and slept.
On the 19th we were going to have one of the best days of my life, we were going to go to a café on the edge of a cliff that had the Zambezi River flowing beneath it. The café had a bunch of high wire thing we could do, there were things like ziplines, a flying fox, a canopy tour (on ziplines) and a gorge swing. The gorge swing was a 75 meter drop then you swing for 90 meters over the raging Zambezi River, and I’m doing it (and everything else I mentioned). When we got there the first thing we had to do was the canopy tour, we were all doing it, even Emma, and Emma’s never done a zip line before, it’s going to be her first. When we got on I went first (because I love ziplines), I love the feeling of just rushing through the air, it’s so fun. When Emma went, she said that it was a little scary, there were nine ziplines in the course and we were going to do it all, when finished it we went over to the flying fox. Me and dad were doing it, when dad did it he said it was pretty fun, but when I did it, it felt awesome, it was a quick ride but it was cool. Next it was the zip line all of us… Wait, it wasn’t, it was the gorge swing first (gulp noise), the gorge swing was the only thing I was truly scared of, and I was meant to do it alone. When dad was about to go, I asked him if I could go with him, and with him being my dad, he said yes. So they strapped us in and we stepped off, when we were falling we were going so fast that the 75 meters were over in about 4-5 seconds, and when we were swing it felt so cool, when we stopped they pulled us up. When we got up the next thing on the list was the big zipline, dad went first (I wanted a 5-minute break) when dad was pulled back to us, I got my turn, we would stand on the edge of a platform and then push of. When I was going through the air it was so fun, the ride lasted about a minute because we would just slide back and forth. When it was Emma and mums turn, they were doing it together, mum was in first but when they were putting Emma in, she got to scared and bailed out. Mum was going to do it by their self but I (happily) offer to go with them. When we went I encouraged mum and pointed out some interesting things I saw. When we got back up we went and got some drinks from the café and then went home, did a bit of blog then watched a movie, then to sleep.
On the 20th we didn’t do much, we were having a blog and schoolwork day, we started our day by doing some work then we did blog, after that we just stayed home play games and then in the night we watched a movie. I need to mention that this is our last day in Zimbabwe, tomorrow we are flying to Namibia, that’s our last stop in Africa, then we are going to France. When the movie finished we went to sleep.
Andrew, aka smartest person ever, young genius, mini Albert Einstein, person who dislikes school, Andrew the great. For those of you who would like my autobiography or autograph, my autobiography comes out in 8456 and my autograph is $10000000000, at the moment it’s on a 1% discount, so buy it as soon as possible. Bye bye.
THE END
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 18th we went to visit Victora falls. I know what you’re thinking. You went there three days ago but that was in Zambia and this time we are in Zimbabwe. This time it wasn’t as wet as last time but it still was cold. We saw a lot more from this side. We saw 25 percent in Zambia and 75 percent in Zimbabwe. Mums thong broke so we went looking or another pair. Came back and had noddles for lunch. After that we did schoolwork and blog.
On the 19th it is a big day for me. We spent a fortune on today, but it was worth that money. We all did the canopy tour, (which by the way was a bunch of little ziplines) dad and Andrew did the very big swing and the flying fox, (the big swing is a big swing, and you had to stand on a platform then you jump off and free fall for a bit and just before you reach the water you go up) mum and dad and Andrew did the big zipline but I was too scared to. and do you know why it’s my big day, I WENT ON MY FIRST EVER ZIPLINES TODAY! I went on 9, I was meant to do10, but I didn’t go on the big zipline. It was too high for my liking, but Andrew happily took my spot with mum. I was happy that I did the little ones. I was so scared that I was actually shaking with fear. On one of the ziplines I got wacked by a rope in the eye that took off some of my skin. I have a bruise now. I felt a bit scared, happy and worried. The view was amazing. I am very proud of myself. After that we had a couple drinks and went back home to do blog.
On the 10th we did post cards. Then we walked around to find a post office. After that we came back did blog and schoolwork.
Tomorrow we are taking a plane to Namibia.
THE END.
Emma (8 and half years old)Читать далее
Lol ils n'étaient pas rassurée,mais ils ont sauté, bravos a vous tous,😘 [Dada]
Windhoek, Namibia
21–25 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
Ongiini? (How are you? In Oshiwambo one of the main language in Namibia)
Last blog we were leaving Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We took a plane to Namibia. It only took less than a couple of hours to get there. I always feel guilty when I use plane as I know it is not good for the planet, but it was the best option for us for that trip, so we did.
I’ll have to see how we can offset our carbon print when we come back to Australia. If anybody knows a good company, I’d love some information!
Anyway, the flight was quick and easy. We arrived in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, found an ATM to get some money (where we got some South African Rand, as they are accepted here, but we were a bit surprised: we wondered if we landed at the right place for a second!), got a taxi (after a bit of negotiation around the price) and arrived at our place, a flat in a big building. Windhoek is the closest to the city we are used to in Australia, we have seen in a long time! Big streets, big buildings, clean. That is a nice change.
We had a quiet evening enjoying the comfort of the flat and the view of the city from our windows.
The next day, we found a small breakfast place to sustain ourself and then went shopping. We have been spending a fair bit of money in Africa, so when we can, we cook to save some money instead of eating out. We are set for the next few days!
The city is nice and you can tell there is a lot of money around here, but there are also a fair bit of people asking for money and especially children. I wonder if this is a type of organised group who send kids out to try to get money of tourists. We never give money to kids, or buy things from them, for that reason; we don’t want adults using kids to get money instead of sending them to school. But it is always heartbreaking.
Namibia is considered a higher-middle-income country but has extreme inequalities in income distribution and standard of living, and it shows.
We wanted to learn more about the history of Namibia, as I have to admit knowing none of it, so we went to visit the independence museum. It is a pretty modern building with 3 big ‘pillars’ that hold a big circular part where the museum is in but several meters from the ground! The museum was full of arts, pictures and object related to the history of the last couple of centuries. It was interesting, sometime graphic, and saddening to see that Namibia like so many other countries had lived through horrible time.
The museum didn’t had a clear timeline explanation so we had to do research later on to understand a bit more. Here is what we learned:
Toward the end of the 19th century, Germany colonised the area which they called South West Africa. At the beginning of the 20th century, the local Herero people started rebelling against the German. Followed a genocide perpetrated by the German against the Herero people. It is believed than 50 to 70% of the population was killed. German chased the Herero people in the desert and poisoned the water well, so a lot of people died of hunger and dehydration or poisoned by the water.
During WW1, South-Africa invaded the region to fight the German. When WW1 finished, South Africa refused to leave and impose the Apartheid on the region. Followed years of fight to regain their independence. International forces, like UN, got involved, but South Africa refuse to acknowledge them. It is only in 1990 that Namibia finally got independence and became a republic. However since then, SWAPO (South West Africa People Organisation) is the only party who has managed to win the presidential election.
That is it for my history lesson of the day.
After that we went to visit the national art gallery, with mainly paintings of different style were exposed. I always love asking the kids what is their favourite piece of art and it always surprises me. I couldn’t take pictures of the paintings which was sad, because some were truly beautiful.
After that we got into a massive shopping centre looking for shoes for me as mine are getting old, but as always, I don’t like spending money on piece of clothing for me, so I didn’t got any! We got a bit lost in it as that shopping centre as it was huge!!!!
Then we got ‘home’ to do some schoolwork and work for me and movie night.
The next day, we did nothing!! Well, we didn’t go anywhere as Kev and I spent the whole day planning and booking things for our Europe part of the trip. Kids did a lot of homework as we know we won’t have internet much for the next few weeks, so they ‘studyladdered’ a lot (this is a website we use for school work)!
In the evening, we needed to get out a bit and we wanted to find some live music. We got lucky: we found a little place called Musos where a small band was playing. There was a drummer, a guitarist/singer and a guitarist solo and at some point, someone with a harmonica came in. They sang some pretty cool songs, and we had a great time.
So far in our travel we have used Esim for our phones. You download an electronic sim card and you got some date to use. Easy! We did that for Namibia but this time, it didn’t work very well at all, so we spent some time the next morning on a chat to get it fixed, just to be told that we were getting a refund because the network is not working well in Namibia. Great! Now we need to find a local physical sim. We got back to that massive shopping centre we went in a couple of days ago, struggle to find the right shop (as there is not map and what feels like a thousand shops over several levels!) and saw the massive line to get a sim card…. No thank you. I did not have it in me to wait for several hours for that. So we’ll do with no internet for a while! If we find Wifi, great, if not, well that will be it! Disconnection here we come! If you don’t here from us, it is just because we are not connected!
After that we try to find a botanical garden we saw advertised, but it was closed like every museum in Windhoek on the weekend. Lets get back to the apartment and do more booking. A bit more schoolwork and games.
Tomorrow, we are getting a car fitted with 2 rooftop tents and we are going to discover Namibia.
We’ll see you when we see you!
Mel
22.5.2025. We woke up to a cold morning, it's bloody freezing here. First things first, sort out some breakfast. A very short walk to a small coffee shop/cafe, see's us get that sorted. Then off to a supermarket to get some supplies for the next few days. Back to the apartment and put everything away. Off again to find some attractions. We found the Independence Museum, where we learnt about Namibia’s struggles with colonisation. They finally got their independence in 1990, after lots of fighting. After that we walked to The National Art Gallery of Namibia, it was interesting to see different styles of art. We then walked and found one of the biggest malls I have ever been in, almost got lost. We were looking for shoes for Mel, but had no luck finding what we were looking for, a hiking sandal thingy. We navigated our way out, Mel remembered they had seen something fitting that description in a shop near where we bought groceries. We headed there, a little pricier than we hoped. We'll think about it and maybe come back. We went back to the apartment, did some schoolwork and researched Namibia a bit. Made dinner, played some card games and hit the sack.
23.5.2025. What did we do today? Not a lot, and yet heaps. We never went out, we stayed in all day. Kids blogged some more and got lots of schoolwork done. Mel and I got a fair bit of planning done for Italy. Most of it is paid for, found out there's a tourist tax in all the major cities, yay! Something else to pay. After a full day of that, we, Mel especially was spent. I found a place on GMaps that has food/drinks and live music, Mel found a place too. We headed to mine, couldn't find it, and where we were looking looked a bit dodge, so we didn't hang around and ask questions. Alright, let's head to the place Mel found. It wasn't where GMaps says it was either, but we found it on our way to where GMaps says it was. Nothing was happening yet, we grabbed some drinks, found out there's no food, went outside to a table and played a card game. We heard the music start up, so we packed up and went inside. Just three guys playing, one of them singing, but it was good music. We chilled there for a bit, and left when Andrew looked like he was falling asleep and Emma kept saying she was hungry. Walked back to the apartment, I made pasta and egg quick. Watched a little tv and went to bed.
24.5.2025. We had bought a Namibia esim, we only got 1 because it was kinda stupid expensive. It hadn't been working properly or even at all. My job this morning was to contact the company and see what could be done. After a lengthy WhatsApp conversation and multiple screenshots, the assistant told me that the esim doesn't work in Namibia. Then why sell the bloody thing! We got a refund, but now we're without mobile service except for wifi. We walked back to the massive shopping mall we were at yesterday looking for a local Sim. Mel waited in line for a while, I went and got some money out, I came back and Mel hadn't moved. Judging by how many people were waiting and how slow the line moved, we gave up, we're not waiting all day and decided we don't really need a Sim card that much. Hopefully places will have wifi. We wandered back, started doing more schoolwork again. We'll be camping for almost three weeks, so we're getting a heap out of the way now. Also because all the museum's and other stuff seem to be closed on the weekend, yay.
Kev
On the 21st we woke up and made breakfast then we did schoolwork, we did that for ages and then we went to the airport to take our plane to Namibia. We were going to go to the capital city, it was called Windhoek. When we got to the airport we went through security then we went to a little café because it was nearly lunch and we were hungry. We ate our food and then went to the gate and waited again then when it opened we went in, the plane was a new plane with new types of seating and TVs. It was going to be a short plane but there were TVs, it made me very happy. When the plane took off I was already watching a movie, the plane was flying for two hours, that means I can watch two short movies or one long movie. When the plane landed we got off it was a bit late so we got a taxi and drove over to our hotel, when we got there we went to bed straight away. Night night.
On the 22nd we were going to have a walk in city to find some groceries (we have a kitchen) (again) when we found a shopping centre we bought some food. When we got it, we then went back to the apartment to put it away, then back to the streets to wander again. We were going to go to a museum about the history of Windhoek, on the way there we ran into another museum it was called the museum of independence, here’s a bit of history on Namibia. Namibia got colonised by the Germans in 1884 and the region became known by the Germans as Southwest Africa, the people tried to get out of being colonised but sadly their efforts ended up in a genocide. The genocide took place between 1904 and 1907 when the German killed the local people. Not long after in 1939 when World War 2 started Namibia got captured by south Africa (yes there is a country named south Africa). Sadly, Namibia only gained independence from South Africa in 1990, only 35 years ago. When we went into the museum it was about the stuff that’s happened to Namibia. It was sad but interesting, when we left we went to an art gallery, when we got there the artwork turned out it was pretty cool, none of the art work looked the same, it was beautiful though. There was jewellery and paintings, it was very cool, when we left we went to a shopping centre to try to find good not so expensive shoes because mum’s shoes were broken. When we found a good pair of shoes they were pretty expensive so we didn’t buy it and we went home. When we got home we made dinner and went to sleep.
On the 23rd we didn’t do much we just stayed in the room doing schoolwork and blog and research and blog and schoolwork and research and plainly just more WORK. Near the end of the day we went out to a place where they have live music and some drinks, when we got there, mum and dad got a beer and I got a soft drink. The music was pretty nice so we stayed for a bit, when it got late we went home and went to sleep.
On the 24th we went to the shopping centre to try to get a sim card because the e-sim wasn’t working, when we got to the place there was loads of people there so we waited for twenty minutes but nothing really happened, it was going very slow. So we left and decided to go to a botanical garden, when we got there, the gates to it were closed, which meant the whole thing was closed, why close it on the weekend if they want people to come. When came back to the hotel we did blog and schoolwork, this is our last day here, tomorrow we are renting a car and we are going to drive around for three weeks. When we finished we had dinner then went to sleep.
This is the end of my blog so clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap and clap. Now cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer. This is it, the big finish, the tremendous end, the crazy stop, it is…
The end
Andrew (10 year old)
On the 21st we took a flight from Zimbabwe to Namibia. We took a taxi to our new flat. We saw lots of grass fields and lots of plants.
On the 22nd we walked in the city. Lots of buildings, lots of people, lots of things to visit. Then we went to the museum of independence. Early in the 20th century Namibia was a German colony. After the first world war south Africa occupied Namibia and extended their apartheid system to Namibia as well. Namibia gained independence from south Africa in 1990.
After that we went to the art gallery. My favourite piece was the stained glass. There was stained glass that when light was on it would make a rainbow. There were lots of paintings but there was also other stuff like fabric and oil pastel paintings. Then we went to the shopping centre. Bought some stuff and headed back home to do schoolwork.
On the 23rd we did blog and planning.
On the 24th we slept in. had breakfast (I had scrambled eggs on toast.) and headed for the mall. We were looking for a sim card. (The place had a bunch of desks that had chairs in front of them.) We found the place, but it was packed. People would walk in when there was a line. So, we gave up on it. went back home, did packing and blog.
Tomorrow we are renting a car for three weeks.
Emma (8 and a half years old)Читать далее
Etosha national park by Mel
25–28 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
Hello from Etosha,
On Sunday the 25/05, we picked up our car. It looked good but after a few days in it, there are some issues with it. Nothing dramatic yet, but lots of little things which make our trip a little bit less enjoyable. We laugh at ourselves a bit as we were complaining about the car we rented in Zambia, but the setting was much better than this one. You never know what you have until it is gone, they say!! And it is true!
Anyway, we picked up the car, did some shopping and drove all the way to Etosha in the North of the country. It took us around 5 hours and the roads were pretty nice. The landscapes are amazing in Namibia: massive plains with beautiful mountains in the background. It is a pleasure just seating in the car and enjoying the view.
As we are doing a lot of car trip in Africa, we started listening to audiobooks. We started the last 2 Harry Potter books as we have been reading the first 5 in Australia. Now we are listening to the last 2 on the road. The kids still read a lot by themselves (like a lot!!!) but Harry Potter is a family thing (despite it now being stained by the horrible person that JK Rowling became).
Anyway, we arrived at Etosha trading campsite and set the camp. This is a lovely setting with private toilet and bathroom, and I appreciate it!
The evening was spend watching at the stars, well me and Kevin, the kids wrestled! They spent a lot of time seating in the car, so they need exercise! Wrestling will do!
The next day we went to the Etosha National Park. We thought it opened at 6am, so we got up at 5am and we were at the entrance at 6am, but it was closed! It opens at 7.15am at this time of the year! Great! Went back to the camp, waited a bit while drinking a hot coffee and the kids reading their books. By the way, it is cold here!!! Like cold! Not Canada cold, but still! We have singlets, tshirt and big jumper on, long pants, socks and closed shoes! In Africa! I was not expecting that. It is winter here after all.
We got back to the entrance of the park and waited in line with the other cars (who knew the proper time to show up), did the paperwork to get in. We were told no plastic bags allowed in (all good), not firearm (no worries there), no drone (don’t have one) and you can get in with raw meat but you can’t leave the park with it! Okay… we have some raw meat as we have our fridge in the car (we can’t take it off). We will have to cook it inside the park! There are some fenced picnic areas where you are allowed to get out of your car, so at lunch time, Kev will cook all the meat we have. I know it is to not get animal disease out of the park: I don’t quite understand how it helps, but this is the rule and we’ll follow it.
By the way, let me tell you about Etosha National Park. The park is 22 270 square kilometres, and its main feature is a massive salt pan which cover 4 800 square kilometres. The pan was formed 100 000 years ago and around 16 000 years ago, the Kunene River which use to flowed into the pan changed direction due to tectonic plate movement. After that the plan slowly dried up and salt and mineral were the only thing left. During the rainy season, some water pool formed and if the rainy season is very wet the whole pan is once again a lake attracting thousand of migrating flamingos. The word Etosha means “great white place” in the language of the Ovambo tribe, who was the tribe living around Etosha when the first European arrived in the region.
Now it is one of the most visited areas in Namibia as it is very easy to see wildlife. The park has a lot of natural and human made water holes all around the park, which draw the animals and make it easy for tourists to admire the beauty of nature.
We saw so many animals that day. On the road to the park, we saw a tiny little spotted cat, we thought it was a kitten but it was a full adult small spotted cat and it was adorable. We saw zebras, a lot of them; it seems to be one of the main species in this park. They are beautiful, big and funny to watch. At some point we were following a dazzle of zebras: they were on the road and we were driving slowly next to them, we could almost touch them (which we didn’t obviously) when one of them started rolling in the dirt and all the other ones started copying that. It looked like they were truly enjoying that. I did a bit of research to find out why they do that: it is for self-grooming, getting rid of ticks and other parasites. I also came across some very interesting fact as well; zebras each year, roll around the same areas during the dry season but doesn’t come back to the same spot the following dry season. Where they choose to roll, they move the dirt and rock and leave a sandy ground and a depression in the ground. During the following rainy season, water stay in those holes and vegetation grow there better, including vegetation which struggle growing in dryer ground. Zebras help the diversity of vegetation in Namibia while having a ball rolling around! Nature is amazing!
It was one of the many moments that stood out to me for that day.
We saw springboks, wildebeests, lots of different birds (small and massive), ostriches (that was exciting!), elephants (not as many as in other parks but still), giraffes (majestic as always), South African ground squirrels (they are adorable and funny to watch, standing on their back legs a bit like a meerkat), oryx with ginormous straight horns, a yellow mongoose (this is a specie similar to ground squirrel and meerkat), some rhinoceros but from a distance.
We also saw lions. This was pretty special. It was in the first hours of the morning, we were driving on a road and saw several cars stopped (always a good sign!) and we saw one lioness. Awesome! Then after a few minutes, Emma said what is that behind that small bush. It was a male lion laying down! We stayed there watching them and then realised that it was a couple in one of their mating days. Lion and lioness go for a whole day apart from the pack and mate a lot of time during that day to ensure the lioness becoming pregnant. We stayed there watching as the lioness got up and went toward the male lion telling him it was time to do his part and he did; it was quick but impressive to watch. Then they rested next to each other for a bit and the same scene happen again. We stayed there watching the majestic animals for around 45 minutes. Also we notice one springbok standing at a relatively safe distance, but not moving, not grazing, just watching the lions. We assume it was a ‘sentinel’ springbok as there was a big herd of them not too far. Its job was probably to keep an eye on the lions and make a sound if they started to look hungry! Hard job! At some point another male lion arrived: he walked at a safe distance, but still close enough for the couple of lions to keep their eyes on him until he disappeared behind trees further back. It was a tense moment, and we are so lucky to have witness all that. The ‘sentinel’ springbok, when it saw the third lion went “nope!!!” and move a fair bit further! Smart animal! It was so very special. I am so grateful for those experiences.
Another thing that I loved during that day was the gigantic nests we saw in lots of trees. We drove next to one which was on a low tree and we could watch the birds flying in and out of it. Those were sociable weavers. They are tiny little birds who built incredibly complex nests with, it seems, a lot of little ‘apartments’ as I imagine them, glue to each others. You can hear the baby birds inside and you see the adults birds bring food to them. The entrances of the nest are under the whole structure and they hover under the nest for a bit before getting in. It is truly amazing to watch and I could have stayed there all day watching.
We stayed in the park from 7.15am to 6.30pm (closing time) and it went so fast! Etosha national park is one of the main attraction in Namibia and there is a reason for it. It is truly magical.
We went back to camp, had dinner and played some board games then to bed.
The next day, was our second and last day in the national park and we wanted to focus on smaller animals. Emma really wanted to see meerkats. We headed toward an area that we thought was more likely to see them. Unfortunately, we didn’t. Etosha is a giant park and the roads (which you have to stay on, off road is forbidden) are far apart. There are huge areas where you can not go and it is great for the animals, but it means that it is a lot harder to see the smaller animals. But in our search, we saw other amazing things!
Right at the beginning of the day, we saw a car stopped, so we stopped obviously, wondering what was there. After a few minutes of not seeing much, Kev said “There is something there”: it was pretty far away but we could see something cat like moving around. I tried to take some pictures but it is hard when the animals are far as I have a small lens. After zooming at the pictures on my camera we figure out it was either a cheetah or a leopard: the main difference between the 2, are leopard have bigger spots and cheetah have black lines on their faces. We think it was a cheetah. We were super excited as it was one of the animal we haven’t seen yet. So now we did!!!
We kept going and saw more zebras, springboks, a smaller species of ground squirrel. We saw a jacqual, which look like a cross between a fox and a dog maybe. It was pretty shy, so it run away fast but we saw it!
The night before at the camping we are staying, I bought a map of the park which also have a list of the animals you can find in the park. The kids really enjoyed finding the animal we could see and ticking them off the list.
We had several magical moments during that day. One of them was at a waterhole: we were watching the crowd of regular zebras, springboks and oryx when they all suddenly seemed more alert and looking in the same direction; that is when we saw it too, a male lion walking to get a drink. The walk of a lion is majestic; they know they are some of the strongest animals around and are not worried about who else is there. Just walking calmly toward the water hole and having a long drink. Then he stayed there for a while. He was still there when we kept going. On our way out of that water hole, Kev suddenly stopped the car. “What did you see?” “Another lion I think” And yes, just on the side of the road, hiding into long yellow grass was a lioness laying down having a rest. Only a few meters from us, strong and beautiful. After a few minutes, one of us (I can’t remember who) said “there is another one!” and yes, a couple of meters behind, was a smaller lioness. How many more is there around? We counted 4 (as far as we know). They were hiding well! It was amazing to see them so close. It has been a few times now that we are close to lions but it is always a wonderful moment.
During that day we had a couple of hours with not a lot of sighting as it happens when you are trying to spot wildlife. It was toward mid-afternoon, so we decided to go back to camp. The park had a few more surprises for us before we left.
We took a small detour to go toward the gate of the park, and it was a lucky decision. On the way back, we saw 2 more cheetahs; again for a bit far, but as they are very shy animals, this is pretty much the only way to see them! After that we drove behind an ostrich which was running on the road for a few minutes! And we saw 3 more lionesses walking on the road, getting ready, I imagine, for the night hunt. It was, with a beautiful sunset, the best way to finish that day.
Etosha is a marvellous place. If you come in Namibia, spent several days here, you’ll be sure to keep those memories for ever. We only had 2 days and I wish we booked for more.
But it is ok, we have more adventures waiting for us somewhere else! The following day, we were on the way to Henties Bay on the coast of Namibia.
See you then.
MelЧитать далее
Etosha National park by Kev
25–28 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
25.5.2025. Today's the day we go camping again! We got picked up out the front of the apartment complex and taken over to the rental place. It went way smoother than what we experienced in Zambia, though we not as happy with setup. Anyway, car picked up and off to do some shopping. We had hoped to buy a fair bit a fill the car right up, but the storage is pretty shit. The last car had a set of roller drawers under the fridge and we could put heaps in there. This one had a poxy little box, which held bugger all. We also have a much smaller fridge to work with, so we held back on buying quite a lot, hoping we will pick up fresh supplies as we go. Car loaded, somewhat, we set off. It took around 5 hours to get to our campsite, Etosha Trading Post Campsite. We saw some big Baboon looking things and some pumba’s on the way. We rolled into the campsite and were a little surprised. I had read about it before we left, but was not ready for what greeted us. Big, paved roads leading into a new looking fuel station. To the right of that, a tyre repair/replacement centre. Just past the fuel station, up a paved path was the restaurant/store. Stocked with almost everything we needed (beer), except matches or a bbq lighter. They had given us two boxes of matches with the car for the stove, both were almost empty. They also have wifi at the store and a pool if you want to go for a swim. We signed in and drove around to our campsite. Really nice set up. There's a counter and sink, our own toilet and shower with actual hot water(luxury) lights and power points. Most of it under cover, with a portion outside that and a grassed area, one of our spiffiest stays yet. We noticed later, just past our little grassed area was an electric fence, just past that was an artificial water hole with lights set up. Bloody hell, they're really catering to the tourist's here. There are even benches near the fence so you can sit and watch. I didn't, there was nothing to see and it was getting a bit cold. I made dinner, made more difficult because of the lousy pots they'd given us but we managed. After that we sat on our grassy area and watched the night sky, while the kids wrestled each other on a blanket I had spread out. Finished our drinks, and went to bed.
26.5.2025. We set the alarm for 5am, we wanted to be packed up and off to the park. I asked the guy who fueld up the car yesterday if the park opened at 6, he said yes. Maybe there was a communication breakdown, because when we turned up at the entrance just before 6, it was closed and dark. We saw a sign, saying it opens at 7:15. Bloody hell! Makes sense we figured, as that's when the sunrise was. We had no idea what to do, we went back to our campsite and parked near the fuel station. Used the wifi a bit then headed back when it was close to opening time. Our campsite is only 5-6klm from the entrance, so not that long a commute. We arrived back at the entrance and got in line, filled out some paperwork and waited to enter. We were told this is just the entry, we had to pay at another place 17klm into the park. Mel sorted everything out and paid for today and tomorrow, so we don't have to do this again. After that we were off to see what we could see. It didn't take long, we came across some zebra, then saw our first wildebeest. We saw a few tour vehicles parked up, what are they looking at? As we got closer we saw it, a lioness laying not far from the road. We pulled up and had a look. Before long we had seen the male lion laying not far from her. We then witnessed what many probably don't get too, we saw them mate. Not sure how long we were there, when another big male came from our right and strolled past them, disappearing in some bush beyond them. Wow! We set off again. We poked along some more, speed limit is 60 in the park and the roads are pretty good.
We kept going, turning off a small “detour”, straight into some giraffe. What a start to the day! We drove and drove, seeing lots of zebra and wildebeest, and our first Ostrich! Plus ground squirrels and lots of birds. We had a nice moment, when we drove slowly along side a big herd of zebra, almost as if we were part of it. They didn't seem to mind, and at one point we watched them start to have a roll around in the dust. Why we're not quite sure, but it was pretty fun to watch. The park is over 22,200 klm/2, and since you have to stick to the roads it limits your chances of seeing animals. They work around this by putting in waterholes, fed by bore pumps, near the roads. So at some point the animals will come close for a drink. We visited lots of waterholes that afternoon, with little luck. We were hoping to see some elephants or maybe even a rhinoceros. It was getting late and we had to be out of the park by 6:30pm, so we started heading back. We saw a car parked, and know what that means, they've seen something. We stopped near them and tried to see what they could. There! A Rhino! Where? There! It was 30-40 metres off the road and very hard to see through a lot of trees, and it was heading away from us. It was still pretty special. Alright we need to keep moving otherwise we'll be late. We were on the main road heading to the entrance when we saw vehicles parked up, you know what that means. Two more rhinos, slowly heading away from the road. Oh man if that's how we finish the day, what a day. Now we're wondering if we would make it to the gate in time, so off we went again. Oh look, elephants! 7 or 8 of them, some looked pretty young. The others looked bloody massive. The speed limit in the park is 60, I may have went over it by a touch. We arrived at the entrance at 6:29pm. We did the short drive back to the campsite, I made dinner and then we had a board game night. Absolute ripper of a day, goodnight.
27.5.2025. Had a bit of a sleep in, now that we know the park opens at 7:15 there's not such a rush. Once in the park, we took the first left, towards a water hole we wanted to check out yesterday but didn't have the time. We'd read that others had some success seeing animals here. No luck for us, nothing here. We went around and back onto the main road. Before long we saw a car pulled up on the side of the road. What have they seen? We saw what we thought was a lion at first, but was smaller. Mel got a photo from a distance, when zoomed in on the camera it looks like a leopard. Couldn't see the spots from a distance but could on the camera. Woo hoo a leopard! We headed off again. It didn't take long for Andrew to call out, Rhinos! 7 of them we think, a long way away, so no great pictures. We thought we'd head west into some grassy plains, we'd really like to see meerkats. We drove for a fair while, passing lots of zebra and wildebeest. We pulled into a waterhole for a look. There were lots of Springboks and an Oryx (big, grey with long horns). We sat there for a bit, just watching. The Oryx was lying down, looking around unfussed while Mel tried to get a good picture of it. We were looking around at everything around us, when I noticed the Oryx was standing, looking agitated. Then it took off. What's it seen thats made it take off? A big male lion was strolling towards the waterhole. It was pretty cool watching it walk in, all the other animals scattered. It went to the waters edge and drank for a long time. Afterwards it moved further around and looked to start eating something dead near the water. When I looked through the binoculars tho, what it was eating looked like elephant crap. Do they eat that? Apparently, but why? Something to google when we next have wifi, if I remember. We could have sat there all day watching this lion, but we had a thirst for more. We drove back out onto the road and continued on. We only got about 1klm when I spotted a lion head in the grass, right beside the road. I hit the brakes and turned around. What is it? What did you see? A big lioness right there! As we got closer she got bigger, lying in the grass no further than a metre off the road. Then we saw another, and another, and another! Four lionesses, right there. Three smaller than the one I first saw, and if she hadn't put her head up when she heard the car, we wouldn't have seen any. Once more time seemed to disappear, it felt like we were there for just a few minutes, but it was more like 30. Another car turned up, the lady asking what we saw. A lion we told, she pulled in behind us. Two more cars arrived after, and we decided to head off again. As we were leaving, the first lady that turned up had also turned around to get a better look. She thanked us, I asked how many lions she had seen. “I have seen one”, there's four I said, and her face lit up. They are hard to see, as you may notice from the photos Mel will post. We headed off again, we saw lots of ground squirrels. They are funny little things, you need to be careful because they will run straight in front of the car. They stand up on their hind legs, nibbling seeds or whatever they eat, looking adorable. We found a fenced area to have lunch. One of the big cricket things started to climb up my leg, made me jump. We started to head back towards the other side of the park, Mel had seen a road called Rhino drive. That's where we're headed. On the way we saw all the usual animals. Lots of zebra, wildebeest, squirrels, Springboks. We drove the whole length of rhino drive with no sight of a rhino, false advertising. It was getting late, the day had slipped away from us again, we started heading back towards the entrance. We stopped a few places, Mel took some photos of trees and the countryside. We found a different track back to the entrance, which should get us there a bit quicker. Well it would have if we hadn't seen two more leopards! A long way away, but there they were, heading away together. If we go now we should still make it time. Off we went. There's two more cars stopped there, what's this then? We saw something move in the bushes 20 metres away and something else around 40 metres away. We backed up, trying to get another look. We caught glimpses here and there, then Andrew called out, lion! A lady in another car had turned around and drove past us, they let us know there were 4 of them. She drove along looking for then and we backed up behind her. Then one lion came out and started walking along the road, wow. We turned around so we were facing the right way. Two more lions came out of the bush and started walking along the road. We followed for a bit, taking photos and video. We had to stop, we had to head to the gate. We won't make it on time now for sure. The road we had chosen was shorter than the main road, and I may have been going a little more than the speed limit but we turned up at the entrance at 18:29 again. We headed back to the campsite, fuelled up the car. We had done 650klm in two days in the park. We grabbed a magnet and some postcards, we'd had such a fantastic two days here we wanted something from here. Back to our campsite, a couple beers and dinner was had. Off to bed, up early to pack and head off to our next destination.
KevЧитать далее
Etosha national park by the kids
25–28 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
HELLO PEOPLE, I am here again to present to you something that you all know and love, it is my blog, clap and cheer and do all the stuff I’ve told you to do in previous blogs. Do it, and now you may read.
On the 25th we went to go get the car from the place, when we got there we went to look at the car, it looked pretty nice, we were happy with it so went to the shop with it. We got a bunch of food and then we started driving to our first camping site, it was close to the Etosha national park, that’s what we were going to do when we were at our camp. When we started driving something surprising happened, I got bored (I lied, it’s not surprising), my mum has asked me to say what I did to entertain my self this is what I did. I read a bit on my kindle, then I played (annoyed) Emma then we started listening to harry potter (we are on the last book), after that I read a bit more on my kindle, then more annoying Emma, then I had a chat to Emma, then kindle, then we arrived. When we got there we set up and then looked around at our camp site, then we came back to the car, got out a blanket and lied it down on the grass. We were supposed to lay on it but me and Emma fought on it, I won of course, when we were done we laid on it and watched the stars. Then we went to sleep.
On the 26th we were going to the national park, we stared to early, we went to the park at 6:00 but it opened at 7:15, so we went back to the camp, now it’s time for, FACT TIME. Fact time: the main attraction in Etosha is the Etosha pan, it is a huge dried up Salt Lake. The Etosha Pan and the area that would later come to be known as Etosha National Park was first discovered by Europeans in 1851, when explorers Charles Andersson and Francis Galton came to the wild region in the company of Ovambo traders. Etosha can be loosely translated as “Great White Place” in the Ovambo language. It wasn’t always a national park, it was called an animal reserve in March 1907 then later in 1967 it was given the title of national park. The park is 22,270 km2 big and the Etosha pan is 4,760 km2, it takes over 23% of the total mass of the park. The park has about 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and 1 species of fish (up to 49 species of fish during floods). Cheetahs and leopards are the least common animals to see, (did we see one? Wait and see). Fact time is over. When it was 7:00 we started driving to the park, when we got there we did the paperwork to get in and then we went in. When we got in we went to the plains, the first animal we saw was a zebra, there were loads of them, they were everywhere. We kept going and then we saw lots of springbok (springbok look like impala), we kept driving and looking at things, but then we saw something that we had to go over to. The thing we saw was lots of cars parked at a certain place, which means there’s something good over there, I rate things before I see them by the number of cars, let me show you. 1-2 cars: some thing decent, 3-4 cars: something good, 5 cars: something pretty good, 6-8 cars: something really good, 9-10 cars: something awesome, 11 cars: super amazing, 12 cars, over the roof. It may differ if someone just saw it and no one knows yet but what we saw there were about 12 cars. When we got there we saw two lions pretty close to the road, a lioness and lion, we waited there a little bit and then some thing amazing happened. Emma said, “look I think it’s another lion” and when I looked they were right, there was indeed another lion, it was a male lion just walking about 70-85 meters away. The other two lions didn’t seem to care, the lion just walked past and into the trees, then after that something else amazing happened. The lioness got up and walked over to the lion, she was nudging lion and then the lion got up, they walked around a bit, and then the male lion went on top of the female and they started mating, it was over in about 5 seconds. It was pretty awesome, we saw something that most people only dream of (but I bet nobody here dreams of lions matting, just checking). After that we kept driving, and then we saw a wildebeest, it was a big brown animal with a lump on its back. We kept driving and during the day we saw all these animals, zebra, springbok, wildebeest, lots of different birds, lots of different bugs, giraffes, squirrels, ostriches, Oryxs, mongoose, elephants and rhinos, crazy. At the end of the day we drove out of the car and went back to the camp to sleep.
On the 27th, this was our last day at Etosha so we hopped it would be good, when we left the camp we drove to the gate and went in, and then we saw it, three cars parked on the side of the road. Forget my car rating because this is early in the morning so there aren’t that many cars in the park at the moment. When we got over there we were looking around and then somebody (don’t remember who) said, “I see something moving in there”, they pointed it out and then I saw it. It was a lion sized thing, but when I looked in the binoculars, I realised it was smaller, it looked like a feline shaped animal. When we were looking at it, I noticed that there was another head out there to, just following the other one, we watching it until it got out of sight. Fast forward to the evening when we are back at the camp: we were looking through the pictures and when we found the pictures of the lion/leopard/cheetah (one of them). We studied it and found it had spots, that takes out the lion option, we went on the internet to look up the difference between a cheetah and a leopard, we found out that a cheetah has smaller spots than a leopard, we looked at the picture more and found out it had small spots. It was a cheetah, two of them. Now go back to the proper time where we can actually seeing the cheetah, we kept driving and I saw far of in the distance we saw something, big black dots, they were moving so they were an animal (but what?). I got out the binoculars and looked through them, they were close to the size of an elephant, but they weren’t tall enough, what else could it be, I looked at it again and I saw it, on the animal, a horn. It was a rhino. There was about 7 of them, they were too far away to get a good picture but it meant that we had already seen rhinos today. We kept driving and for a while we didn’t see much then we came across a road going to a water hole, it wasn’t that far so we decided to there. When we got there were wildebeest and zebras and springbok, there were also an oryx, we were just waiting there for a while looking at the animals and then… (if you don’t know something cool is going to happen you don’t read my blog enough). And then the oryx put its head up in alert and ten took off out of here, we were looking around and then we saw it, a male lion strolling towards the waterhole. It was a big one, its mane shone in the sun (I’m exaggerating aren’t I). It went over to the water hole and started licking up the water, we watched it for a while and then we drove out of the waterhole and onto the road. Only about 750 meters of driving and then dad skidded to a halt, “look a female lion in the grass” those were the exact words that dad spoke (or at least something close), but there was indeed a lion in the grass, only about 5 meters of the road. It was a big lioness, one of the biggest we had ever seen and then I saw something move about two meters to the right of it, than I said, “look another lion, just there” (I know I said that), “oh yeah, it a bit further behind”, what? No, that’s not right, it’s next to it, not behind its… wait, there is another one there to, and right next to that one, it’s another one, that makes four lioness just slumped on the side of the road relaxing, awesome. We parked there watching them for a while (mum took lots of pictures), and then quite a few more cars pulled up next to us (we can never enjoy a moment alone). Though all the cars, we still waited there for a bit watching them, then after a while we kept driving, then dad saw two things in the grass. It was a jackal, I mean two jackals they were fast and slightly annoying why? They kept moving further away. We kept going and see al l sorts of stuff, nothing new, just the same animals we’ve seen before, after a while we came back to the water hole to see if anything else had come, and there was, there was an ostrich (actually there was 7). When you are reading dad’s blog he will say there are 6, he is wrong, (according to me) (and I am always right) (Emma edit: no, he is not always right, sometimes, not all the time though), don’t listen to them, their wrong, (another Emma edit: no I’m not). We looked at the ostriches for a bit and then kept going. While we were driving an ostrich came on the road and started running in front of the car, it was pretty cool seeing the ostrich run. The ostrich kept following the road so we had to stick behind it, then we saw a herd of wildebeest, (fun fact: a herd of wildebeest is called a confusion). the ostrich ran off the road because of the wildebeest and the wildebeest scattered because of the car. We kept driving until we saw two cars, there were only two cars but in my car rating sequence it should have been a 16, there were two dotted cat-like things in the distance, they were about 100 meters away and they were walking further away, we watched them for a bit and then by the time we kept driving they were about 200 meters away. To skip a fast forward I’m going to tell you that it was two… (dramatic music), CHEETAHS!!!!!!!! When we were driving pretty close to the exit, we saw another car stopped, we went over there and then we saw car pulled over so we pulled over. We were looking around and then dad saw a feline shape near the road, and then I saw it, it had no spots so it was a lion. It was moving towards the road then, it came out of the grass and started walking on the road, then one more came out, and then another, three lions were on the road, we could see them clearly, it was cool. We didn’t stay that long because the park was closing soon and we had to get out, when we got out we went to the camp and went to sleep.
On the 28th we drove from Etosha to Henties Baai, we are staying there for 2 days, the drive there is a 5 hour drive it’s going to take while but hope it’s going to be worth it.
My mum has assigned me to do research about an animal for my science work, my animal is a cheetah and here is my work. Cheetah’s bodies grow to between 1.1m and 1.4m metres long and their tail grow to about 65cm to 80cm. Their weight is from 34kg to 54kg, males are slightly heavier than females. There top speed is 112kmh, they can accelerate to their top speed in 3 seconds. Cheetahs have about 2-8 cubs at a time, the cubs stay with them for 12-24 month, they usually hunt during the day. Cheetahs have no mating season, they mate any time of the year, unlike other big cats, cheetahs don’t roar. They are one of the oldest spices of cats, dating back to 3 million years ago. Cheetahs don’t often drink water and they can’t taste sweetness. Cheetahs used to be used for hunting long ago, they used to be used as pets by royal people. Cheetahs normally live alone and the most time they stay with another cheetah is with their cubs. Cheetahs are prey to many animals including lions, hyenas and wild dogs. Cheetahs are not aggressive and only attack when hunting, they will flee from fight without defending themselves, they are generally non-conflict animals.
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The end
Andrew (10 years old)
Gooooooooood morning folks. In this blog, you are going to experience great animals and good times. Etosha facts: Etosha national park is one of the biggest parks in Africa. It has a salt pan in it that can be seen from space. (We do not know how far from space.) the salt pan is a lake that dried out and left the salt behind. The salt pan is about 130 k long. Zebras: in the wild zebras can live up to 25 years. A zebra’s stripes are like human fingerprints. Zebras can sleep standing up. There are three species of zebras. Zebras’ stripes are for camouflage.
On the 25th we rented a car for three weeks. It looked really nice, but it turned up to be not that nice. We did shopping and got quite a lot of stuff. (Well, I guess we are gone for weeks.) Well, anyway, we drove to Etosha camp. To keep myself busy, I read, listened to harry potter (by the way, we are up to the last book) and chatted with Andrew. We had an early night. Just before we went to bed, we watched the stars and me and Andrew wrested.
On the 26th we had our first day in Etosha national park. We started too early. We had to wait. We saw a lot of zebras, springbok, wildebeest, birds, lions (we saw two lions mating and then a third lion walked pasted them) giraffes, south African ground squirrels, bugs (we saw these big black bugs that were the size of a deck of cards) Ostrich, Oryx, a big nest in the tree, yellow mongoose, elephant’s and Rhinos. I felt really very lucky. I know not many people get to see what we saw, so we were very fortunate. I was very happy that the animals were free. That made me feel happy. My favourite moment of that day was when the Zebras rolled around in the dirt and when we were driving next to a dazzle of zebra (When there is more than one zebra it is called a dazzle). In the evening, we had a board game night.
On the 27th we had our second day in the park. we only saw two new things that we did not see on the first day was a jackal and a CHEETTAH. We saw two cheetahs in the morning and two cheetahs in the afternoon. We saw the jackal close and the cheetahs further away. Well at least we think they are cheetahs because they could have been leopards. We then went to the water hole. We saw a lion down at the water hole. First it was not there then all the animals stepped aside for the lion to pass. When we were on the way back from the water hole we saw four lions. First one then we spotted two more and then another one. There were four. When we were on our way back to the exit we saw an ostrich on the road. It was running. We followed it for a while then it ran off the road. Then we saw three lions on the road.
On the 28th we packed up our camp and drove to bucks camping lough. It was about a 5 hour drive. I could see open spaces as we drove. Lots of sand. Mountains and stuff. When I looked out of my window, I saw brown sand and small sand hills. When we arrived at our new camp, we set up. We did a bit of shopping. Then we did boring old blog. Had dinner around a fire because it was fricking cold. Night-night.
Emma (8 and a half years old)Читать далее
Henties Bay, Namibia by Kev and Mel
28–31 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C
Hello from Henties Bay,
We are on the coast of Namibia, in a small town called Henties Bay. The town has around 8000 inhabitants (10 000 in high tourist season). This is a nice lovely stop to relax.
We drove here from Etosha on the 28th of May. It took around 5 hours. Again the landscapes are incredible. On that side of the country is the Namib desert. We crossed some massive flat landscapes with very little on it. Kilometres of open flat land. Despite looking empty, it still captures the imagination and I spent the drive just looking around admiring the view passing by.
Just before arriving in the town, Kev was looking at the exterior temperature dropping pretty quickly. We could see big cloud in front of us. I read later that when the cold air of the sea and the warm air of the desert meet, it creates a kind of rolling cloud. We saw that and it was pretty impressive. The temperature went from around 30 to 14 degrees in a few minutes. When we arrived, it was cold and humid! That is ok, we all have jumpers… We might need to buy some clothes at some point!!!
We arrive a Henties Bay, set up the camp, went to do a bit of shopping. Back at the camp for some blogging and dinner around the fire, as it is cold (I think I mentioned that already)!!!
The next day we went to one of the biggest fur seal colony. This is why we came here. I read some bad comments about this place but also some great one. I think it depends what time of the year you come here. The bad comments were about lots of dead seal pups. Pups are born around November, December in that colony, so at the moment they are all around 5 to 6 months of age which is pass the riskier time for them. I can imagine that in December January, seeing lots of dead baby seal would be hard. Alos the smell was mentioned. Yes I won’t lie, it doesn’t smell like roses, we are looking at seal after all! But again, at this time of the year it is very bearable. January again, the smell might be harder to deal with.
Anyway we very much enjoy this visit.
A bit of information about fur seal. Fur seals and sea lions are closely related and commonly known together as the "eared seals". There are several species of fur seal, which I didn’t quite understand all the differences, so I won’t bore you with it! The main characteristics are: the male fur seal is much bigger than the female, they have a lot of underfur, hunt small prey and go away on foraging trip for a longer time than sea lions do.
Female can go on foraging trip for up to 7 days when their pups are a couple of months old, leaving their pups on land. The pups stick together waiting for their mum to come back. When they come back, they found each other by sound and smell. We did see small seals coming back from the water and calling out, sniffing bigger seal to see if it was their mum.
We drove for around 40 minutes north of Henties Bay to arrive at Cape Cross Fur Seal colony. You pay you entry fee and off you go. You can get out of your car, which is nice!!! (we are used to national park where you can not!). There is a wooden path for human to walk on without disturbing the seal to much.
There are thousands of seals!!! It is amazing! They are very noisy as they keep calling each other, arguing about who is sitting on that rock, or just making noise for fun it seems! Their activities are: laying down on a rock to warm up under the sun; if they can’t be on a rock, they’ll find a nice place on the sand. They also as mentioned before like to argue with each other, but we haven’t seen any proper fight (it is probably different at mating season). Another thing they seem to like is ‘running’ down toward the beach to go for a swim. The younger ones also love to suckle on their mums, who when they are there and not our looking for fish, are trying to relax on the sand. We spent 3 hours watching them. It was amazing. I always say that I am a city person, but I do love watching wildlife. The pups are adorable, the seals laying against each other and hugging were super nice to see. The kids had a laugh watching the seal running down to get to the water.
After that we came back to the town to have lunch at a little pub, where they had nothing vegetarian, so I had a plate of chips…I miss India (for all the vegetarian options if you haven’t read my previous blogs)!!!
Anyway after that, we drove 10 minutes south to look at a shipwreck and walk on the beach for a bit. The beaches are massive here with nobody on it (It is too cold for a swim!) The ocean is beautiful. The sand is white with a tinge of green where the water hits it.
The coast is apparently very treacherous, hence was there are several shipwrecks all along the coast. But this one, is one of the best preserved for the moment. It is called the Zeila shipwreck. It is laying on its side and waiting for the ocean to finish it as it seems nobody is taking the responsibility to move it away from the water. Too expansive I guess.
We walked along the big empty beach, while the kids run around and draw in the sand. After a while we came back to the camp for a relaxing rest of the afternoon.
On the 30th of May we waited for a driver to get us another renting car as the one we have, has a tent which is about to break down (screws extremely loose and metal bits which move every time we move; I didn’t feel to safe in that tent!). After getting the new car with much better tents, we went back to the beach. There was a massive drop which the kids love running down (Kev and I took the stairs!). There are a few people fishing from the beach with long fishing rode, so we watch them for a bit. We walked along the windy but beautiful beach for a while. The kids going up and down the big dune (they have strong legs those two!) Emma is becoming a lot more confident in her body and it is good to see.
Afternoon was school work and dinner at a local restaurant (no vegetarian, so I got fish which I am assuming/hoping is fished locally…)
The next day, we’ll be on the move again. A bientot!
Mel
28.5.2025. We woke up and packed up. We had loved our time here at Etosha, but it was time to leave. Our next stop is Buck's Camping Lodge in Henties Bay, around a 5hr drive. We set off, saying goodbye to a great park and campsite. We arrived at Henties bay in the early afternoon. As we approached, there was a strange cloud formation on the horizon. As if we were driving into an immense, long cloud. Turns out, the warmer desert air mixes with the cooler ocean air and creates fog. Was a bit eerie. We checked in and set up the car. This camp is alot less frills, and packs people in tighter, but everything works. The shower is hot, can't complain. It's bloody freezing here tho, windy and cold. We need a few supplies, so we went for a walk and found a small supermarket. We got bread and eggs and some veges. Most importantly, we got more matches. We walked back, noticed the power socket doesn't fit the universal adaptor we have, so we went for another walk. We were headed back to the supermarket, but it was now shut. It's only 3:30pm! On a Wednesday! Hey look, that service station looks like it has some stuff. Yay it had an adaptor for our adaptor, we can charge stuff again! We spent some time reading, blogging, mucking around and eventually, cooking dinner. I started a fire, and we sat around it eating dinner. Teeth were brushed, and beds became occupied. Goodnight.
29.5.2025. Late start, sun gets up later here and it's friggin freezing. Breakfast was had and we got ready to head out. About an hour's drive away is one of the largest fur seal colonies. Let's go and have a look. Seals everywhere! 80,000-100,000 at anytime and up to 210,000 during mating season. You think there's heaps on land, then you look out into the ocean and there's heaps more. It smells, but not as bad as some described. Apparently the highest mortality time for pups is just after birth, we were here when they were 6-7 months old. I guess it could smell a lot worse in a different season. Constant noise, constant movement. Seals going into the water or coming out. We read the only time an entire demographic was on land at the same time was newborns. Also that mother's could spend up to 7 days at sea feeding, in order to provide milk for their pup, which was left on land. They usually hang around other pups. It was fun watching them “run” down to the ocean, sometimes struggling to get back up. There was a built boardwalk for visitors, I think you used to be allowed to walk among the seals, but no longer. If something happened it would no doubt be the fault of people. We weren't sure how long we'd be here, it is “just” looking at seals after all. Turns out 3hrs, and that's only because we were getting hungry. We didn't really want to leave, but it was agreed for everyone's safety, certain people were fed. We headed back to Henties Bay, found a cafe and ordered lunch. It was not spectacular, but we got fed. Mel is having trouble with restaurants here, there is not many vegetarian options, if any. So they had a bowl of chips. Andrew and I on the other hand are having no problems, there's meat everywhere! Afterwards, we headed a short distance to a ship wreck. A bottom trawler that was being towed somewhere for repairs, when the tow rope snapped and it ran aground. There are shipwrecks all up and down the coast, earning the name, “skeleton coast”. We had a bit of a walk along the beach, then headed back to the campsite. We carried out the usual around camp business, ya know, blog, poke Andrew with something, schoolwork, make dinner, poke Andrew again, set up the tents for the night. It's bloody cold, so we are utilising both blankets and hot water bottles. Goodnight.
30.5.2025. We had to wait around a bit this morning, we found one of our tents was falling apart a bit. Mel contacted the hire company yesterday, and they sent a replacement vehicle this morning. After that we drove down to the beach front in town, to have a look around. We stopped and parked, then strolled off towards the beach. Was further away than we thought it would be. There was a pretty big drop down at the start, then a stretch of beach for 50m or so, then another, smaller drop down to the ocean. We watched some people fishing, they caught nothing but it was interesting. We had a walk along the beach, before long the kids were running down the first big drop. I thought for sure there would be a stack, we even videod it a few times, but alas, the kids always made it down upright. The kids drew some stuff in the sand, and would have stayed for a lot longer. Mel and I had had enough tho, and we headed back. We had lunch, and researched about the seals and other stuff. Later we went out to a different restaurant for dinner. This was cheaper than yesterday's, but way better. Good burgers and Mel had some local fish(only thing close to vegetarian), a few beers and wines, throw in some dessert and it was a nice meal. Walked back, read a bit and went to bed.
KevЧитать далее
Henties Bay, Namibia by the kids
28–31 мая 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C
GOOD MORNING\EVNING\NOON\NIGHT (one of them), my blog is ready to be read, so read away, (have you donated all your life savings to me like I told you to do in my last blog?). Now you can read.
On the 28th we made some breakfast and packed up our tents, we are going to go to Henties Baai, the drive there was about 5 hours. When we started driving I surprisingly got bored (again), I played with Emma, we didn’t play that long because it got into an argument, (Andrew: Emma started it, not me, I’m innocent). (Emma edit: no he is not, I’m innocent). (Andrew & Emma edit\argument: Andrew: I’m innocent, Emma: no, I am, Andrew: no, me, Emma me, Andrew: me!!!, Emma: ME!!! Andrew: Shut up and stop arguing Emma: (quietly) you shut up) (Mum edit: They really don’t argue that much!). When we got to Henties Baai we set up and then went out to shop a bit, we went out to the shop and then came back and went to sleep.
On the 29th we woke up and then we packed up the camp site because we are going to go to a place called cape cross seal reserve. It is the biggest cape fur seal colony in the world, it has over 210,000 during mating season, with starts in mid-October and ends after an average of 6 weeks. When we arrived there we could get out of the car and walk on these wooden path things, it was pretty impressive, there were seals everywhere. Wherever I looked I could see seals, some swimming in the sea, some running down to the sea. There were young ones and old ones, me and Emma found a spot where they were running down under us to get to the sea, the funny thing was that none ever went alone, they went always in a group. We watched that for a while and then we went to another place on the path we could see even more seals, we looked at them for a while then we went back to a restaurant near the camp. After that we went to a shipwreck that we could see from the coast, when we got there we could see it very easily, we looked at it and then when we finished we went back to the camp to sleep.
The 30th we went to the beach, we didn’t know what it would be like but we really didn’t know how fun it would be. When we got there, we had to go down a long steep dune thing, it was on a 40 degree angle (I think) and about 20 meters high (I have no clue, I’m just listening to what my dad said). When we went down I ran down it as fast as I could (well probably not as fast as I could, but close) I was down at the bottom in about 7-10 seconds (not sure how long it took). I could have gone quicker but I didn’t want to roll down the hill, I mean rolling would have been faster, but I want to remain alive. It was actually pretty fun, so I did it again, and again, Emma wasn’t doing it from the top only from about 3 meters up (amateur), we kept doing it and eventually Emma did it, they went up to the top with me and ran down. We did it for a while and then we went to the car and then we drove back home to do blog and then to sleep.
The end
Andrew (10 years old)
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkk!
On the 29th we went to the cape cross fur seal colony. It took one hour to get there. It is one of the biggest fur seals colonies in the world. Me and Andrew liked watching the seals run down into the water because it looked like they were racing. The little ones were the fastest. It smelt like dead fish. There were little ones and big ones. They had fur on them. Lots of babies. The seals are black when babies and brown when adult. Half of the world population of cape cross fur seals live where we went. Once on land the male seals will not eat for up to three months. The mother goes out for a while and returns home with a belly full of food and turns it into milk. The mother calls out to all the baby seals around but only gives milk to her baby. Sometimes the mother can identify her pup by smell or a call. A baby seal is called a pup. I liked the seals, but I didn’t like the smell. After we visited the cape cross fur seal colony, we had lunch at a restaurant. Then we went to a shipwreck. It was near the beach. All we had to do was go to the beach and we could see it. it was on its side. We played a bit in the sand and went back home for dinner.
On the 30th we changed our car because the first one had a broken tent. When we had our new car, we noticed that it only had two forks AND WE ARE A FAMILY OF FOUR. Luckily, we had forks in our bag. Then we wandered down to the beach. There was a steep slope to get down to the beach and Andrew and I were the only one’s crazy enough to do it. mum and dad took the steps. We found out that it wasn’t as steep as it looked. Me and Andrew walked up and ran back down. We came back, had lunch and did blog.
We are going to our next destination. See you there.
Emma (8 and a half years old)Читать далее
Spitzkoppe, Namibia by Kev and Mel
31 мая–4 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
Hello from Spitzkoppe (if you had to read that a few time to pronounce it, I did it too!)
Spitzkoppe (means the ‘pointed dome’ in German) is an hour and a half drive from Henties Bay where we were before. It is inland and hotter! It gets cool at night time, but it is much better than on the coast at this time of the year.
We drove there on the 31st of May. The town is very small and seems to be mainly built around those huge massive rock formations. We got to our campsite and it was not quite what we were expected. We got directed toward the share camping ground where the view is amazing. But on the website where I booked, it said electricity and hot shower. We are staying here for 4 nights, so we kind of need that! But there was none of that. Not even a sink. The only way to get water is to get it from the shower head (cold of course and not super practical). There is that big rock around which the campsite it organised and if someone is on top of it, they have a lovely view inside the shower which has no roof! We still set up there. The kids had a ball climbing on top of the big rock.
There are a few things we had to be careful of around here: Kev saw a scorpion and a snake (a horned adder which is venomous) was in one of the shower… There are also those massive beetle type all over the floor. They are not dangerous, but they are big and I don’t want one on me!!! So yeah ! Fun!!! Andrew loved playing with the beetles though!
We walked a bit around the camp, climb on that rock to watch the sunset, made the fire and had dinner around it. I tried to take some pictures of the night sky with my small ish camera. I got a few good one (but I so wish I had a way better camera!!!).
The following day we visited the park. Spitzkoppe is a massive rock formation. The highest peak is 1728m high above sea level. Spitzkoppe’s story begins over 700 million years ago when volcanic activity shaped the region. These granite peaks emerged from magma chambers deep within the Earth’s crust. Over time, erosion sculpted these colossal rocks, creating truly beautiful shapes and colours. The colours are due to the presence of mineral and especially quartz. A lot of those can be found around and a lot of locals try to sell different rocks found in the area.
On the way to the entrance of the park, there are a lot of local people trying to sell rocks and small crafts and asking for water. We weren’t sure at the beginning what was the meaning of them waving empty water bottle at us. Were they selling water or asking for it: but they are asking for it. Water is a rare resource over here. We don’t have much water with us (2 bottles and a big 5L bottle that we use to fill up the two small one. We keep toping this one up when we find good tap water) As there are 4 of us, we can’t really give away the water we have. It is always hard to know what to do when facing people who need so much when we have a lot. I always say that spending our tourist money is one of the way to help, but I’m not sure it goes to the people who need it the most. A lot of the camping and places we are staying seem to be owned by white people. Of course, local people are working here, so that is good. But what about the more needing people. I don’t know what to do. We can’t buy things to all the people who offer things for us to buy. We would need another 3 backpacks full if we did.
The main thing to do here is climbing on rocks and driving around rocks. It sound boring, but it is not! The rock formation or rock giants (we keep seeing human form in them, so we decided they were rock giants) are amazing, gigantic and simple incredible to watch. We climbed on some when they were not too steep. The view from the top is breathtaking. We got into small caves (one of them under what we thought was the hand of a rock giant).
We also saw some rock painting which were between 4000 to 2000 years old. We had a guide for that (as you have to) and he was very interesting. We got a lot of amazing information about the Khoisan people who were nomad people who used to live here and did the drawings. The shaman was the only one allowed to paint after doing a trance dance. The paintings were used to communicate with other groups of nomads. They drew elephant or rhinoceros to indicate which direction to find water (as they followed those animals to find water). They painted the animals that could be hunt in the area (springbok, wildebeest, giraffe..). If they drew a lion, that meant be careful.
The kids were super interested, so I am sure they will share a lot of the facts we learnt.
One of the things I was interested is the origin of clicking language. I had heard about it before but now I know why it started. When hunting, the Khoisan people didn’t talk as it would alert the animals of their presence (they were disguised with animal skins), so they used clicking noises (which sound more like natural noise) and it is part of their language. It is still used today. Our guide gave us a demonstration and it was pretty impressive. We tried to copy and failed miserably!
After a quick sandwich we went to an arch made by stone. It is apparently relatively famous (I think I saw pictures of it before) and it is impressive. All natural made by rocks which fell the prefect way to form that arch. We took the regular selfie in the arch of course! We walked all around, climb some more. We also saw some Hyraxes or rock dassies: they are small mammals living in the rocks in the area and they are usually active in the early morning and end of the afternoon to avoid the heat of the middle of the day. The strangest fact about those is that they are closely related to elephant. Both species come from the same ancestor, the Tethytheria. Their teeth, skull and toes are similar, just on a different scale! We haven’t seen big animals here. I don’t think there are a lot, but a lot of insects, snakes and birds.
When we were done, we got back to camp and asked at the reception where we could have hot shower and asked why we didn’t have electricity like written on their website. They said that they don’t have camping site like that (and it shouldn’t be on the website), but they moved us near a hut type thing where we can plug the car (for the fridge in it) and there is hot shower in it. Yeah (4 days with no hot shower with this cold weather, I can’t do it!)!!! We set up there and had a regular evening after that.
The next day was school day for the kids, organising the 3 billion pictures I took lately for me, laundry day as well and relaxing doing not much after that!
The third and last full day at Spitzkoppe, we went back in the park to do some more climbing on the rock and take on a little bit more of the beautiful views. The shapes of those rocks are truly mesmerizing. We got to see more Hyraxes, bugs, lizards and some black birds which seemed to be following us around!
The afternoon was spent doing a bit more of school work and pictures sorting and then board games and lazying around.
On the 4th of June, which will be our 5 months traveling anniversary, we are going to our next stop, Swakopmund which is back on the coast of Namibia.
See you there.
Mel
31.5.2025. Today we're off to another spot, Spitzkoppe. There was no rush as it's only a couple hours drive. The kids played with some other kids in the campsite while we packed up. We headed to a supermarket and resupplied, we were told by another traveller in the campsite that Spitzkoppe doesn't have much, so make sure you take what you need. That's what we did, fridge is full again(not just beer), we hit the ATM just to be sure, and set off. Pretty rough road and a really strong headwind, it's blowy as here at times. The trip was a little slower than we expected, but not too bad. We found our new campsite, Spitzkoppe Tented Campsites. We checked in and found where we are supposed to camp, around a big rock, right near the park. However, when we booked, the website said hot shower and electrical point. We had neither, something Mel had decided to bring up later. Some more people rolled in and started setting up. That came with more kids crawling all over the big rocks. The kids had new friends to run around with. We had a bit of a chat with some of the adults, when you travel you always have something in common with other travellers. The most brought up topic is kids schooling, after they learn we're on gap year. Nearing the sunset, we all climbed up to the top of the highest rock and watched it set over the mountains in the park. We saw our first rock dassie(hyrax). This little grey furred animal between some rocks, as soon as it saw me it froze. Kinda looked like a massive hamster. Andrew thinks he saw a snake, naturally a lecture about being careful flew out of me. We went back down, made some dinner, lit a fire and enjoyed our evening.
1.6.2025. We had planned on getting an early start to get into the park, that didn't work. It was cold and nobody wanted to get up. Another camper found a snake in a shower and came to let us know. We saw our first horned adder. Not a really big snake, still didn't like it tho. Eventually we set off for the park, we drove through town, took 2 minutes, and arrived at the entrance. Fees were paid and admittance was granted. We stopped a few places and climbed up as high as we could. Emma has come along way with her confidence in her bodies abilities. She climbed very well, and seemed to really enjoy it. The views are amazing, massive rocks pushed up through the earth's crust 160-170 million years ago. We did a guided tour to see some cave paintings, the guide had lots of interesting information for us. The paintings date back 2000-4000 years, and told the nomad tribes where they could find water and what animals were here to hunt. He told us they would make a hole in ostrich eggs and remove the yolk and white, then put a little honey inside and place near an ants nest. The ants would clean out the shell perfectly and they then used this to carry water, fascinating stuff. He talked to us in “click” talk, something the people developed to communicate while hunting. If the animals heard them speak they would run off, but clicks they would just assume as natural. The people would also hide under animal skins, including the horns so they could get closer before shooting their arrows. After that we made lunch, then drove around to see more of the park. It really isn't a very big park, lots of it is closed off or set for guided tours only. But we saw a lot and climbed on heaps more before heading back. Once back to the campsite, we stopped at reception to use some wifi. Mel checked their website, well whattayaknow, it says hot showers and electrical point. Mel asked them what's going on, as we're paying a fair bit (for Namibia) to stay here. We promptly got told to use a cabin so we could shower and plug in. We parked next to the cabin, checked it out, and set up the tents. They use “donkey geysers” here to heat the water, as soon as we thought it was ready, everyone had a shower. It was glorious, hot and refreshing. Dinner was enjoyed by all and a good sleep was had.
2.6.2025. Camp day. Got up whenever we wanted. I cooked breakfast for everyone and we started doing some blog. Blog is starting to be a bit of a problem, Andrew has lots to write, and his writing is really good, but he gets distracted and takes forever. I call him Distracto! His super power? Getting distracted. Emma got some maths done. Now we just let the day unfold as it normally would.
3.6.2025. We decided to try breakfast at the restaurant. As always, I should have picked something else. Mel's omelette looked really good, while mine, which was more expensive, left me wanting. Not gonna do that again. We packed up and went back into the park, with the intention of just climbing things and exploring. That's what we did. We saw some more lizards, dassie and birds. We climbed way up the side of a hill, until we couldn't go any further. We'd had enough and came back. Camp set up again, coffee made, kids blogging. Stay tuned, more to come.
KevЧитать далее
Spitzkoppe, Namibia by the kids.
31 мая–4 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
On the 31st we drove to Spitzkoppe (pronounced: spit-s-cop) it is a bunch of really big boulders and rocks, here’s some history of how it was made (and some other stuff). Spitzkoppe is German for “pointed dome”, Spitzkoppe isn’t the only name it has it is often referred to as “the Matterhorn of Namibia”. The highset elevation of any point is 1728m above sea level and 670m above the ground, Spitzkoppe isn’t the only mountain in the area, not far away is little Spitzkoppe, it is 1557m above sea level and then a bit further over is what is known as the Pontok mountains. Spitzkoppe was made in the Damara Orogeny, 210 million years ago, it was a huge geological event that changed the scenery of Namibia, over millions of years, wind and erosion smoothed down the rock granite surface to make it smooth and look like it was carved specifically. Other than the scenery there is rock painting from the Khoi San people, the paintings were made 2000-4000 years ago.
When we got to Spitzkoppe we found our camp set up I played on a big rock near the camp site, then we made dinner and went to sleep.
On the 1st we went to a national park, Spitzkoppe is in the national park, we paid the entrance fee and went in, in this park we were allowed to get out of the car because there weren’t many animals. When we found a nice rock, we got out and started climbing it (yes, we are allowed to do that in this park), we climbed up a bit and then we got to the top, the view was beautiful, it was worth coming up here. We looked out at the land scape and then we went down the rock and into the car, when we kept going we went to the place with the rock paintings, to go up we had to get a guide, there were some guides waiting there though. There was no fixed price but you had to pay a tip of some amount of money, when we got a guide we went up the rock and into a place that there was a bunch of rock hanging out over it. and then I saw it, a human painted into the side of the wall, there was other stuff like animals and, well it was basically just animals and humans, we looked at it for a while and now here is some facts that we learnt. Emma covered a lot so I’m only talking about a bit of it, the paintings were made in red & white colours, red was made with blood and ochre, and white was made with bone, ostrich egg yolk and surprisingly hyrax pee, (which was white). After that we went down to the car and we kept driving and went to another rock that we could climb, then we went to a little track, me and dad did it (mum and Emma were too tired). On the path we didn’t see much just rocks and birds, we came down after a bit and went back to the car and came back to camp to make dinner and sleep.
On the 2nd we didn’t do much we just stayed at the camp doing blog and schoolwork, after that we went to bed.
On the 3rd we packed up the tents and went to the national park, we went in there hoping it would be a good day. When we got in we went to a big rock to climb (I’m enjoying all this climbing), then we went to that track we went to yesterday, but this time with mum & Emma. After that we went to another big rock to climb, we sat up the top discussing were to go next, we didn’t go any where we just sat there looking at the land scape, it was beautiful. After that we went down and drove around a bit more, and then went back to the camp to do blog and then we had a fire and then we went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
Good morning peeps. We are up to our blog for Spitzkoppe. Take a look.
On the 31st we drove to Spitzkoppe. It took about 1 hour and 30 minutes. We found our campsite and set up. We were next to a big rock, so me and Andrew climbed on it, then we had dinner around the fire.
On the 1st it was our first day in the park. The entrance fee was a lot. We got in, drove around, saw a rock and decided we wanted to climb it. When we got to the rock, we got out. Then we noticed there was a camp there. An angry man came out and told us that we weren’t meant to come into camps. We told him that all we wanted to do was climb the rock, but he would not listen. In the end they left, and we climbed the rock. We found out that all the good spots were camps. Some of the rocks looked like they were rock giants. There was one rock that looked like a hand poking out of the ground. And then there was some that looked like people.
After that we went up a big rock to look at cave painting. In the paintings, we saw humans and animals. The Khoisan people were the ones who painted the paintings. Facts about the Khoisan people. They did the paintings 2000 or 4000 years ago. The made their paint with bones, Hyrax pee, (A Hyrax is an animal that is small and brown and fast. And surprisingly related to elephants.) ostrich yolk and animal blood. The animals helped the Khoisan people. The elephants and rhinos help by leading the Khoisan people to water. The Khoisan people hunted the other animals for meat. When the Khoisan people hunted, they did not talk, they used the clicking language. The clicking language is a language where they click with their mouth. The Khoisan people disguise as animals to get close to them and when they are close enough, they’d fire poison arrows at the animals. They did not kill pregnant animals. The reason why they did not kill pregnant animals was because if they did, the animals might go extinct. They used the skin of animals to make clothes, the meat to eat, the blood and the bones for painting. They used an ostrich egg as a water bottle. They would get the egg, shake it up, puncture a hole in it and tip the yolk out. Then they would put honey in it and put it next to an ant nest. They would put it next to an ant nest, because the ants would eat the honey while cleaning the egg. After a few hours, the Khoisan people would come and tip the ants out and fill the egg with water. They would close the hole off with a stick.
The rocks were on an angle which made it hard to climb. Even if it was hard to climb, I would not have made it up as quick at the beginning of the trip. When we were going down, we saw Hyraxes. They were cute. Then we had a sandwich. Then we went to an arch. It was made from rock. We had to climb to get to the arch. It was world made. We took a couple photos and then climbed the arch it wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy either. Dad and Adnrew climbed a big rock next to the arch, while me and mum watched. When me and mum were sitting, we saw a baby hyrax. It was so itty bitty.
On the 2nd we did blog and schoolwork. Then we played our computer.
On the 3rd we went to the park. we got in, drove around and found a rock we wanted to climb. We started climbing, but my pants got spiky plants in them, so we turned back. It was an amazing view. We saw hyraxes, birds and lizards. Did a bit of hiking, climbing, walking and driving. I felt pain because of the plants. I felt tied from the hiking. We listened to harry potter. Then we went home and blogged. Night-night.
Tomorrow we’re going to our next destination which is Swakopmund.
Emma (3 month of being 9 years old!)Читать далее
Swakopmund and Walvis Bay by Mel
4–7 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C
Hello from Swakopmond (Another name hard to pronounce!),
We are back on the coast of Namibia and it is cold again!
On the 4th of June (5 months on the road!!!), we drove to Swakopmund. The previous night Andrew got pretty sick: he spewed a fair few times and didn’t fall asleep until at least 1am in the morning. Emma got sick during the morning. We think it was the water we drank at Spitzkoppe, but we are not sure as Kev and I are fine. We still had to pack up and go, which we did. Andrew slept in the car on the way to Swakopmund, which took us just under 2 hours.
We found our campsite and set up everything. The camp is right near the beach, with the sound of the waves as background sound which is very nice.
We had to find some pants for Emma (One of hers has holes all over), and for Kev and I as we only packed one pair of pants (we were thinking hot weather, so we have more shorts!), but as it is cold here, we really need another pair! So we did that. We then found a place to have lunch, which was delicious, but the kids didn’t eat anything as their stomach is not back to normal and they don’t feel like eating anything. Hopefully, their appetite will come back soon.
We went back to camp and the kids rested in their bed, while Kev and I relax, doing not much. We had a tough night too, helping Andrew, so we are pretty tired.
The next day, we tried to take it easy as the kids are slightly better, but not back to normal yet. We visited the Crystal Galerie. This is a museum/shop with a lot of semi-precious stone as Namibia has a lot of those. This is one of the trades of Namibia especially diamonds.
The gallery has the biggest quartz cluster in the world (it weighs 14 tonnes!!!) This is a massive quartz (well, lots of them attached together), taller than a human. It took them 5 years to excavate it. There are a lot of different rocks and crystals, with a rainbow of colours and shapes. It was a nice place to visit. You can buy some if you want to and have the money! Emma bought herself a blue heart pendant.
When we left the gallery, we walked pass a pharmacy, so we took the occasion to buy something to help the kids recover faster, as they are still a bit off. We had lunch (well Kev and I as the kids didn’t eat much), then went to the museum.
It was a great museum. A lot was covered: from the vegetation in the different part of Namibia, to the history of whale hunting in the area, passing by the animals you can find in Namibia, as well as old print press and the recreation of an old room from the late 19th century during the German occupation in Namibia and also some cultural object of native Namibian. There was a bit for everyone. I could have stayed longer but the kids were getting really tired so we went back to camp to rest. Early evening and bedtime.
The following day was a fantastic one. We booked a full day tour. We got picked up (which means we didn’t have to pack up the tents! Yeah!!!) and drove to Walvis bay which is a 30 minutes drive from Swakopmund) to start the day in a boat.
As soon as we left, the resident seal followed the boat and our guide for that part of the day, introduced “Moustache” to us. With the aid of a few fish, Moustache climbed on the boat with us. I am not for feeding wildlife, but the guide said he only feed this one. We could pat Moustache while he was enjoying his fish. Seals are impressive animals. Emma loved it and said it felt silky. Andrew said it was crazy to have a seal coming on the boat but also amazing. Which it was (but it still feel uneasy to feed wildlife)!! We also had the visit of a pelican looking for fish too. They are massive birds! The wingspan can be up to 3 meters. They are so beautiful to watch when they are gliding on the wind.
We sailed further away from the port in search of dolphins. And we found them!!! Several groups of bottle nose dolphins. There was a couple of boats there, so they did waves together and the dolphins had fun riding them. It was magical!!!! I loved it. Watching them doing jumps and playing in the waves was absolutely dreamy! I am so glad we got to see that. I’m not sure how many dolphins were there, but enough for us to enjoy a magnificent show.
After a while, we went it search of whales and we found one, a humpback whale!!! We could see it surfacing, blowing some air and a few times we also saw the tail coming out. When that happen, it means it is going deeper under the water, and it will take a bit of time to resurface again.
We also went close to a colony of seals. We previously saw some on land (at Cape Cross) and it was nice to see them in the water. They were so many flipping around, jumping, rolling around: they are really fun animals to watch.
While we were there, the guide got some food out and some bubbly (despite being still pretty early in the morning, but well!). Then we sailed back toward the port.
Andrew said we got so close to the dolphin and a whale and it was amazing. Touching the seal and the pelican was crazy. They are both massive animals.
Emma said it was cool to watch the dolphins and seal jumping out and do flips.
The second part of the day was on 4wd. We got picked up by another guide and we drove to the Namib desert, which is not far, as it is all around the town! The Namib desert is the oldest desert in the world and is famous for the giant dunes which border the ocean.
We did a couple of stops: One to look at flamingo. There isn’t much at this time of the year as they are just starting to come back from migration and another one, to look at a pink lake in a salt farm. It is pink because of an algae. That was pretty cool. We also looked at the sand which is a marroon-ish. The guide took Kev’s phone and took a very close up picture of the sand to show us why it is: there are lots of tiny semi precious rocks, especially rubies and quartz which give it the colour. Andrew straight away started digging when he found out you can find diamonds sometimes in the sand!!!
After that, the guide managed to find a little gecko, the webbed Namid gecko, who only lives in the Namid desert. Its skin is see-through as it lives under the sand and only come out at nighttime. The guide had to dig into the sand to find it. We obviously put it back in the sand after we had a look at it. It is super cute (very scientific description!)
We then drove to a place called Sandwich Harbour where there are some massive dunes. They are over 100 meters high. After some 4wheel driving in the dune, which was pretty fun, the guide dropped us at the top of one of the massive dunes. The landscape is pretty amazing: dunes as far as you can see and then you turn and can see the ocean and the lagoon made of brackish water (salt and fresh water for those who don’t know like me!). We took some pictures obviously. There were a lot of tourists there, but not so much that it was annoying. After a while we walked back down; I was expecting the kids to run down, but they both are still a little bit tired from being sick, so we only walked down (Emma ran a tiny bit with Kev). Some refreshments and nibblies were waiting for us at the bottom. We drove back in town after that. Andrew said it was fun and exciting: driving up and down the dunes were super fun.
Emma liked running through the sand with Kev.
It was a very good day filled with amazing memories. For me the dolphins were the best time of that day and so magical.
The next day, we moved to our next location, Walvis bay which is 30 minutes from Swakopmund (and is where we drove to for our tour the previous day). I booked us an accommodation instead of camping, and I am glad as it is pretty cold at night time and the kids are still recovering, so it is nice to be in warm bed at night!
We did a tiny bit of shopping. It is always hard to buy just the right amount of food for the days we have left here (we are not good at planning that!) and we also got Andrew a warmer coat as he is freezing (I am not sure how he is going to survive Canada in December!). We spent the rest of the day inside our accommodation, resting for the kids, doing a bit of planning for me and Kev. Early night for all!
Sunday the 8th, we walked along the esplanade in Walvis Bay (which means Bay of the whales by the way as there used to have plenty before they got hunted almost to extinction). Walvis bay and Swakopmund are small town with a lot of small houses: it feels very European, It could be a small suburb of a German town for example, especially with the names.
While walking on the esplanade, we saw some dolphins pretty close to the beach. We assumed they were chasing some fish in the shallow waters. It is so cool to see dolphins like that during your morning walk!
We also got into a few tour companies to find more activities to do around here. It is one of the issues in Africa, it is hard to do things by ourselves. Everything is through tour agencies, and it makes the trip a lot more expansive, especially with 4 of us (lucky the kids often pay half price)!
After a lovely lunch, we went to a big shopping centre, to buy gloves! We booked a tour on quad for the next day which start at 8.30am and it is going to be cold, so they advised gloves. I’m sure we will use them again in Canada!
The shopping centre was very much like the one we have in Australia. I even went to a bookshop and we found, in the kids section, the same books that the kids read in Australia (Wimpy kid, Worst week ever, and more) We really could have been in Townsville shopping for books: that surprised me.
Back to the accommodation, for some school work as the kids are feeling better.
They won’t do blogging for those few days to give them a break, but a bit of math, English and science on Studyladder will be done! With big smiles and willing kids (I’m kidding!). After a good school work session, they had free computer time, which they always love. A bit of tv after dinner and bed.
Monday the 9th, we did a quad tour in the Namid desert around Walvis Bay. It was not quite what I was expecting, but it was still good. The guide doing the tour has been doing them for 20 years and know his stuff: he had a lot of information about how the wind, the rivers and rain formed the landscape around here. He showed us how the dunes are moving and covering and uncovering the plain they are on. He talked to us about the history of the area and showed us where a village used to be with grave and as the ground get uncovered, some skulls and bones appear until they get eroded by the wind. We saw pieces of the urn they put on top of the grave with food in it for the afterlife. We saw some small insects that lives here: the fog beetles, which in the morning put the bottoms up to catch the water of the fogs and drink that water. We talked about the plants that lives in this area and how they find water in the desert: some rivers are still running under the dunes, so they grow really long roots to get to it. We looked at animal and human footprints dating back to 2000 years old: as it doesn’t rain a lot, when it does, the mud is thick and footprints stay there, then the dune moves and cover them: there is some fossilised footprints of human and animal who were walking here 2000 years ago. I found that fascinating. It was an interesting tour but I wish we could have see a little bit of wildlife. The quad part was fun: going up and down big dunes were a bit scary but amazing. Andrew loved the speed and we screamed a few time in delight going down a big dune. Until I got too cocky and took a turn too fast, so I got thrown out of my quad. I was riding with Andrew in front of me and he stayed on the quad, which I am very happy about, as I had a helmet but Andrew didn’t, as the guide said it won’t work with the kids sitting in front of us. No bad injury, just a sore side and back for the next few days. I slowed down a bit after that! It was a good lesson for the kids about knowing your limit and speed on wheels! We had lunch in one of the restaurants of the harbour (there isn’t that many): the fish here is delicious.
Andrew said it was really fun to be on the quad and Emma loved going over the big dunes (Obviously she said!)
Then we got back to our accommodation and played video game all together. The kids loved it!
Tuesday the 10th of June is our last full day at Walvis bay and we did one more boat tour to try to see more ocean life. This time, we booked on a catamaran as it is higher and I thought it would be easier to see whales on those. We got to see dolphins right under our feet: not the bottlenose dolphins that we all know, but the Dosky dolphin: they are smaller dolphins and have specific black, grey and white markings. They played on the side and the front of the boat for a while: it was incredible. I don’t care how many time you see that, it will always be amazing to watch dolphins playing, jumping, interacting with us. I love it.
We saw seals and pelicans of course as they are everywhere here.
Unfortunately, we didn’t see any whale. But this is wildlife: you enjoy what you get and we did enjoy. Food and drinks were served on the boat, but as I got seasick when we hit the small waves of the open ocean, I took it easy!
Emma liked just watching the dolphins swimming under us.
Andrew absolutely loved it when he was at the point at the front of the boat and the dolphins were under him swimming.
After the tour, we posted some postcards as we are leaving Namibia soon and we are running out of time to post them! And back to the accommodation, pack our bags as we are leaving tomorrow for our very last stop in Namibia. We are going to Sossuvley in the south of the Namib desert.
We’ll see you there.
Mel
PS; no blog from the kids on that part, as they were crooked and we gave them a break.Читать далее
Swakopmund and Walvis bay by Kev.
7–11 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C
4.6.2025. We had a shit night, Andrew spewed a couple times, through temps and didn't fall asleep, proper, until after 1am. In the morning, Emma spewed. They're both sick as, but we still need to pack up and move on. We think maybe it was the water in Spitzkoppe, but who knows. We got to Swakopmund and found our next campsite, Tiger reef. We went for a walk, bought everyone except Andrew some new pants. Emma ripped a pair climbing the other day. We found a cafe to have lunch, neither kid ate anything, very crook. We walked back to our campsite and booked a tour, not for tomorrow but for the next day, hopefully the kids will be better by then. We just hung around camp the rest of the day. There's no place to have a fire and it's pretty cold, so hot water bottles were filled and beds occupied. The kids are buggered so there was no arguing about bed.
5.6.2025. Slow day today, we'll go see the crystal museum thing, then the actual museum. Kids aren't eating, bellies are not great still. On the way to the crystal place we stopped and bought Andrew a parker, it's cold and the jumper he has just doesn't cut it. The crystal museum was pretty good, lots of different things to look at, also the world's largest quartz cluster. It's bloody big, 14,100 kilos. There's 4 more too, the next largest weighing 13,000. We bought some stuff, Emma got a necklace and Mel some “gems of Africa”. We walked past a pharmacy and grabbed some medicine for the kids, see if we can speed up the healing. Hunger was setting in, for Mel and I at least. We stopped at a cafe, Andrew and Emma ordered, but that was about it. They both ate hardly anything. Mel and I ate two lunches pretty much. We then went to the museum. It was fairly impressive, with a lot more in it than we thought it would. Andrew can hardly stand and wants to sit whenever we stop. We walked back to the campsite and the kids rested in the tents, reading their kindles. It's warmer in there, and since we walked today and have a tour booked for tomorrow, we don't need to set them up for a couple days, yay. They are rooftop tents and pretty easy, but it still feels like winning. I made dinner, kids didn't eat much of it. Nice hot shower, bit of Netflix and bed.
6.6.2025. We have today all booked out, starting with a boat trip to see dolphins and whales and all sorts of things. Couldn't convince the kids to have any breakfast, hopefully they'll be ok all day. We got picked up at our campsite and driven to Walvis Bay. We then boarded a boat call Mojo, with a bloke named Len. About 2mins into our boat trip we had a seal called Mr Moustache in the boat. This is obviously something that happens all the time, the boat even has a little platform at the back for the seal to jump up onto. Anyway, some pictures were taken, a seal was fed and patted. Like patting a wet dog, less smelly tho. The seal hopped off and we got going again. Next it was a pelicans turn, same thing. Landed in the middle, fed and petted. Ok now we're off to see some stuff. Just before we got going tho, Len asks if anyone wants some coffee? It's 8:30 and it's freezing cold, ken oath I want a coffee, and my hand shoots up. He then proceeds to get out a brand new bottle of, what turned out to be a very nice sherry. Kinda looked coffee ish in the cup. I wish I could remember the name, it did warm us up kinda like a coffee would. We kept going while sipping our sherry. He showed us a bird platform, built years ago to to collect their guano. That's bird poop to the younger reader. Apparently it's going for around $600usd a ton, and they harvest over 600 tonnes a year. It's used for fertiliser and shipped to South Africa and Belgium, he tells us. It's privately owned, I guess you could say they make shit loads from it. Very near the platform we found dolphins, quite a few of them. They swam with us and another boat for a while and we watched them jump and muck around. We had a little break from the excitement, Len got out some refreshments. Soft drinks for the kids and a beer for Mel and I. Im starting to really like Len, he's a top bloke. After that we headed to another spot where we caught glimpses of a humpback whale. While looking for the whale, we saw a smaller species of dolphin. Len said this species was rarer to find, they're about ⅓ the size of the other ones. We caught several glimpses of the whale, then headed towards an area full of seals. Seals everywhere, on the land, in the water. I was sitting on the nose of the boat when we came in. Seals were jumping and swimming all over the place. I videoed them for a bit, when I decided to come back down and join the others I was greeted with a terrific sight. Len had set out some food platters! We tucked in, not the kids, they're still sick. The food was well received. Then Len popped a bottle of sparkling wine. Wey hey Len! We ate, we drank, then Len got out the oysters! Lovely fresh Namibian oysters. Another bottle was opened, and shared around. Just to let you know, there were 4 other people on the boat, it wasn't just Mel and I getting sloshed. Though we had our fair share. The others didn't go much on the oysters either, we made out well there too. After all the food was gone and drinks were done, we headed back. We thanked Len, he'd made it a fun morning with his humour, not just the drinks. We got back on the dock, the lady who picked us up this morning was waiting for us. She led us to our next activity, and 4x4 tour along the coast to Sandwich Harbour. Our first stop was a viewpoint in front of a hotel. The guy said we can use the bathroom in the hotel. It's like he's done this before. At the viewpoint we saw our first flamingos, there was only small amount so far, still early in the season. He told us the whole place fills up with them. We set off with one other car with New Zealanders in it, stopping just outside Walvis bay to have a look at the salt farm and its surrounds. We saw a pink lake, tasted a small runoff river. Pretty bloody salty. Then headed off again. We got amongst the dunes, and made another stop. This time the guys looked for a small native gecko, only found in Namibia. It has no skin pigmentation, so is basically see through. It hunts at night, and stays under the sand during the day. We stopped again a little later and saw at least 8 whales feeding near the shore. When I say near, I mean 150-200metres. We kept going, came across some ostrich and got pretty close before they took off. We made it to the end, Sandwich Harbour, did some dune cruising before stopping on top of a huge dune. The drivers left us there at the top to go set up for our picnic at the bottom. We had a look around, you can see for ages on top of the dunes. We walked/slid down to the cars where some tables were set up. What do ya know, there's glasses of sparkling wine waiting for us. Oh, alright then, if you insist. They had a selection of meats for us to try, I enjoyed the Oryx. The kids had a tiny little bit. We saw some black backed jackals over near a lake. We had a chat, ate and drank, packed up and headed back. I can't remember the guy's name, but he was informative and friendly. Emma fell asleep on the trip back to Walvis Bay. Once there, we got shuttled back to Swakopmund. It was a bloody ripper of a day, I was glad the kids had been ok all day. Even though they hadn't eaten bugger all for the day, it was fun enough to keep them happy all day. Once back to the campsite we rested, then had a hot shower. A little bit of dinner was had by the kids, then off to bed.
7.6.2025. We're off again today, but not very far. We're leaving Swakopmund and heading to Walvis Bay, about 40klms or something like that. No rush this morning, made a small breakfast as the kids are still sick. We got to Walvis Bay and hit the supermarket to stock up a bit, also the ATM. We then found our next stay, a small apartment. Nice and cosy, with a small kitchenette, that'll do. We had a lazy afternoon, kids are skipping their blog for a few days, as they're just not up to it for the moment. Nice hot shower, dinner and bed.
8.6.2025. Breakfast was had, then we headed to the Esplanade. We walked for ages, as it's pretty long. We saw fish and seals, then a small pod of dolphins, which came pretty close to land. We studied jellyfish and small crabs that had washed up on the shore. Starting to get hungry, we headed back towards the car. We then drove to the dock area where all the boat tours kick off and found a restaurant for lunch. Kids had sushi, I had the biggest burger I've seen in a while and Mel had local fish and chips. I definitely know the kids are still crook, they didn't finish their sushi. Mel and I did, was bloody good. After lunch we headed back to the big mall and looked for some gloves. Early start tomorrow to do some quad biking. It's gonna be cold, so we're getting a little more prepared. After that it was time for some schoolwork, games, dinner and bed.
9.6.2025. It's hard to get out of bed when it's cold, but somehow I managed. I dressed in layers today, singlet, 3 shirts, hoodie, 2 pants and my new gloves. Oh yeah, 2 pairs of socks too. We headed off to meet the guy doing the quad bike tour. There was only us and him, 3 quads all up as Emma rode with me and Andrew with Mel. It was a fun, educational trip into the dunes. We saw and learned about some beetles, can't remember their name. We saw 2000 year old footprints, both human and animal, in “fossilized” mud. We learned that scientists have been here and studied them all very thoroughly. He tells us that the dunes are travelling slowly north, the bigger they are the slower they move. As they move they cover things up, they also uncover things. We were shown shallow graves, lots of them. The people that lived here thousands of years ago would bury their dead right where they lived. Often with the ornaments they wore and food in a pot for the journey after. They get exposed as the dunes move, then the winds and sand erode the mud covering them. Eventually, everything will be gone. Sand blasted to nothing. We had fun zooming around the dunes, Emma cackling like an old witch sitting in front of me. Saying “no, no, no” as we dropped off, over the top of a dune, then giggling as we slid down it. I would hit the throttle as we got close to the bottom and hear “weeee”! It was a fun day, we had hoped to see more wildlife, but it was not meant to be. You get what you get with this sort of thing. Nothing in nature is guaranteed. We hopped back in the car and went back to the jetty area for lunch. Tried a new restaurant, and this time I picked something from the sea. A seafood platter. The fish was good, the calamari was bloody brilliant. Washed down with a big glass of Hansa, a local beer, originally brewed in Swakopmund but now in Windhoek. Back to the apartment, coffee and rest. Kids read their kindles before I let them play a bit on their computers. We got Mel into a game the kids like (monster legends), it was nice to see them all interact as they played the same game. Shower, dinner and bed.
10.6.2025. We were not sure what to do today, so we booked another boat tour, this time a bigger catamaran, to see more ocean stuff. Shortly after setting off, we had the obligatory cup of brandy that seems to go with this sort of thing(not complaining). I got 2 cups. We stopped and saw lots of fur seals at Pelican point, should be renamed seal point maybe. We saw lots of the smaller dolphins, dusky dolphins I think, swimming along with the catamaran. We had food, more oysters, yay! Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales. We'd been hoping, being in a bigger boat, we'd see them better. Can't see them if they're not there tho. I had good chat with a group of 4 from the Netherlands. They'd been in Capetown for 5 months studying and were having some fun before heading home. We got back to the dock, drove to the post office to send some postcards, and are now blogging and doing schoolwork in the apartment. Off to a new place tomorrow. Stay tuned!
KevЧитать далее
Sossusvlei, Namibia by Mel
11–13 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
Hello everyone,
Last blog we did, we were in Walvis Bay and about to go south of it to Sossusvlei. We did just that on the 11 of June. The drive took us around 4-5 hours. It was a wonderful drive. First, we saw some meerkats!!!! This is an animal that we wanted to see, but didn’t manage to see so far: we did now! We were driving and Kev saw something running on the road and thought it was one of those ground squirrels we saw a lot. We still stopped to checked and realised they were meerkats!! So excited! Emma was extremely happy as she has been wanted to see them in the wild for ages. There was a big family of meerkats. They are fun and super cute.
We kept going after that and admire the landscapes. From Walvis bay, it is flat for a while, but then the landscape change and there are hills everywhere. But the hills are stripped, almost like they were made in sequence. I took some pictures, but they are never as good as reality. There were also mountains in the background. Just breathtaking.
On the way, we stopped at Solitaire, which is a small place where there is a bakery which is supposed to bake the best apple pie in the world. We wanted to try, but they didn’t have any at that time! So we got some food and coffees and took a small break. They also have old cars around the place, just left there, which make a bit of a cinematic scene.
We also stopped at the tropic of Capricorn which was on the way. There is a frame where you can take pictures, which we did of course!
We kept going and arrive at our camp which is inside the Namib-Naukluft national park. This park is the largest conservation area in Namibia and is a Unesco site. This park is absolutely amazing. The landscapes are some of the most beautiful to see.
On that first day, we went to visit the Sesriem Canyon. It is a natural canyon around 1 km long and 30 meters deep. It was carved by the Tsauchab river. There is only a small part which still have water in it all year long. Which mean you can walk at the bottom of it and admire the rock formations in it and enjoy the views from there. Which we did.
After that we came back to the camp, set up and had a lovely evening by the fire.
The next day, we woke up at 6am to get to the Big Daddy Dune in the Sossuslvei desert. The desert is known for the beautiful gold/red colour dunes. Some of those dunes are the tallest one in the world. The Big Daddy one is 325m high and we climbed it!
But first we walked in the huge white clay pan at the bottoms of the dunes with a dead forest in it.
A river used to run around here, but then the dunes came and bloke the access to the river. The trees which were there, became dry and even too dry to decompose. They are still here, burnt by the sun, 1000 years later. This is a beautiful sight: the white of the clay on the ground, those skeleton black trees with the red sand dunes on the background. Nature never ceases to amaze me with its beauty.
The more I travel, the more I realise beauty is everywhere: in the green of a rainforest, in the red of a sand dune, in the dark sky full of stars... beauty is everywhere, you just need to look up!
We did the climb… It was hard!!! Sand is very hard to walk in and even harder to climb in! When you walk, your feet keep sliding back down. It feels you are walking twice the distance!!! It took us around 2 hours to get to the top. Andrew was at the front, Kev behind him, Emma after and me, right at the back! I am not fit! It was really hard for me. But I did it!!! We all did. I was amazed by the kids on how well they did. The view from the top is worth it: dunes after dunes after dunes as far as eyes can see. Again the pictures don’t gave it justice. The climb down is so much easier! You just walk down on side of the dune, which is 33 degrees down (we learnt when we did our quad tour, that the sand on the dune start falling at 33 degrees, so a dune will never be steeper than 33 degrees). It was fun going down. Andrew did it in a few minutes, I took a bit more time as my legs were pretty tired, but it was a lot faster than going up.
After that we were way to tired to climb anything else, so we drove back, admiring the dunes from the car and then went back to camp.
We repacked all our bags properly (after 3 weeks in the car, there was crap everywhere!) as we were leaving the next day! We spent our last evening in Africa around the fire, talking about the thing we loved here.
The next day, we left super early, well before the sun was up to arrive on time to our plane in Windhoek.
Namibia had a couple of surprise for us: on the road, we came across a pack of hyenas. That was so cool as this is one of the animals we hadn’t see yet. We saw a couple of jackals, some zebras and some donkeys. It was lovely seeing a few more animals before we left.
We got to the airport with a bit of time to spare, got some food, checked our bags and we were off for the next part of our trip in Europe.
See you there.
MelЧитать далее
Sossusvlei, Namibia by Kev
11–13 июн. 2025, Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
11.6.2025. We're off to Sesriem today. I don't know much about it, except there's lots of sand dunes there. We packed and checked to make sure we'd not forgotten anything, then set off. It was around a 5 hours drive, with a stop at a place called Solitaire. Well several stops actually, for pictures. The landscape on the trip was something else. There was an even better stop, a sudden, emergency sort of stop. A bunch of little critters ran across the road and I hit the skids to miss them. Meerkats! We had really wanted to see them, but had given up hope. Here they were running across the road in front of us. We turned and watched them for a bit. Woohoo, meerkats! Emma was stoked, that was one animal she really wanted to see. We got to Sesriem, without running anything over, paid our park fees for two days and checked into our campsite. It was still the early afternoon, so we decided to go and check out the canyon walk. It's only a few kilometres from the campsite and was well worth a look. We trekked down into the canyon, heading one way first. We stopped when the path became blocked and headed back the other way. As we walked, it began to open up wider. Andrew and I climbed a bit for some photos, and for fun. We had walked a fair bit, when I noticed there were no other tourists. I got a little worried, it is still Africa after all, so we headed back towards the entrance. Back to the campsite, set up the tents for the night and went about making dinner.
12.6.2025. We're off to see “big daddy”, a massive sand dune, so up early and driving into the park in the dark. When we arrived we read about the trees near the dune. Like a dead forest, they have been here for over a 1000 years. Too dry to decompose, so they still stand. Slowly being covered and uncovered as the dunes shift. The only wear and tear coming from the sand and wind. We walked around the huge, flat, dry dirt area between the dunes where the trees are for a bit. People coming here in years to come will see a different landscape to what we are seeing. Then we decided to climb the sand dune, 325m high and who knows how wide. It took us a couple hours I think, lost track of time. It's hard work trekking up a sand dune, and of course, we picked a harder path, that's just what we do. I can honestly say my legs were close to giving out right at the top. Andrew said he was tired, tho showed no signs of slowing down. Emma trudged up the dunes with no complaints, just resting when we all did. At the start of the trip, Emma could not have done this, she has come a long way, both physically and mentally. I still remember having to push her up a hill in Battambang. Emma received no help today, just praise. The view from the top was something else, looking out over kilometres of sand dunes to mountains far away. we had our fill of being on top a sand dune and decided to head back down. So much easier to go back down, and way faster. We just went straight down the slip face of the dune. It looks really steep from the bottom, but we have learned that a dune can't be steeper than 33°, and was pretty fun to go down. At the bottom I took my shoes off and emptied them out. Chock a block full of sand, and it was getting painful. 2 hours to go up, a few minutes to get down, sounds about right. We walked around the huge open area for a bit, it really is something special to see. We headed back to the campsite, had some lunch and relaxed. Later, we packed again as we are heading back to Windhoek tomorrow. Our time in Africa is coming to an end. We got everything ready for a quick takeoff and the kids played. Dinner around our last campfire, then bed.
13.6.2025. We woke up early as we have a 5 hour drive back to Windhoek to catch our flight to Paris. The kids went down the ladders, and went to put on their shoes. One problem, one of each shoe was missing. I looked out of the tent and shone a light down. There were small tracks around both ladders, heading off into bush to who knows where. My assumption is, jackals. Bloody jackals! They took one of each of the kids' shoes. Why not both of one pair? Now we have to buy two new pairs of shoes, and Andrew's shoes were barely a week old. That sounds like a Paris problem. We packed up the tents and headed off. We were about 30mins from Sesriem when an animal ran across the road, and I had to slow down. Hyenas! Spotted hyenas! Tick another animal off the list. There was a group of around 8-10, and they seemed curious but cautious of us. We drove through some amazing country, over the top of some mountains. The car said outside it got down to -1°. Happy to be inside the car. We dropped off the car and got a lift to the airport. Spent the last of our Namibian dollars on lunch and waited for our plane. First stop will be Ethiopia, then another plane to Paris after midnight.
KevЧитать далее
Our thoughts on Africa, the part we did!
13 июня 2025 г., Намибия ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
This is it: Africa is done for us for this trip. I hope we will come back again to see more of it.
Africa was magical.
There were so many highlights: several moments are inked in my brain. The first time we saw giraffes in that big plain area in South Luangwa Park in Zambia. Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls) with its thundering waters, is something to see. The Livingstone International Cultural Arts Festival with all the dancers from all over Zambia, was for me a wonderful experience and I wish we could have seen more of it.
Watching Andrew and Kev doing the swing (dropping 70 meters down and then swinging on that rope over the roaring river) in Victoria falls was something. Watching Emma fighting her fear and doing her first zipline was wonderful.
The animals we saw in national parks and in the wild were sensational. There is nothing like seeing animals living their lives, free (not in small area in zoo). They are all magnificent. I loved that. We saw so many animals (I’m sure the kids will give you a list!)
Etosha national park was amazing. We saw a couple of lion mating, how awesome is that! We saw some lioness just a couple of meters from us!
In Namibia, we saw dolphins jumping in the waves of the boat we were in. That was magical.
The landscapes were so different: from immense plains, to hills, deserts and massive dunes. Africa has so much to offer.
We also saw people asking for water. Nobody should have to ask for water. This was so wrong. There is still so much to do here for the African people. There is still so many who struggle. It was not as obvious as in India, as there are less people here. But there are still too many people who live without their basic needs filled. This is not ok.
As travellers and human, I want to help, but I am not always sure how to. I said it before: spending our tourist money might help, but I am not sure it goes to the people who need it. I have not seen any non-profit organisation around. I will have to look for it when we are back in Australia to see if we can help, even if it is just a little bit.
As always, we are sad to leave. It is weird to think that Africa is already over. We are almost half way through our trip. The year is going so fast and it is scary.
Next part is Europe, it is going to be so different and exciting, but Africa will stay in my heart and I really want to come back.
Mel
What are my thoughts of Africa? Or more specifically, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Beautiful, but very expensive for a tourist. They don't miss you if you're foreign. There is lots of money here, and lots of poverty too. It's much cleaner than India tho. Namibia, even with mineral wealth and tourism, is still one of the poorest countries per capita in the world. We saw absolutely amazing animals in these countries, way better than any zoo. We saw some truly amazing countryside. We ate some really good food, nshima is a must if you're in Zambia. We had fun, and we will miss Africa.
Kev
Africa has been a lovely country, the animals, the food (after two month in India I needed meat) and the people, some of them are nice and friendly and some have been plainly annoying, but most of them are nice. The highlights of Africa have been Victoria falls, it was beautiful, the gorge swing there, that was a unique experience, Etosha national park, that was purely amazing, the cape fur seal colony, it was unbelievable, and riding on the boat with the dolphins in Walvis Bay, I’ve always wanted to do that. Surprisingly the plants and the countryside actually look pretty similar to the ones in Australia but the animals are like the exacted opposite, kangaroos and elephants have nothing similar. Here are the animals we saw (that I remember): hyenas, cheetahs, lions, ostriches, Oryxs, Kudu, snakes (we saw three types), mongooses (or as I like to call them, mongeese), small spotted cat, monkeys, wilder beast, impala, squirrels, hyraxes, black backed Jackel, meerkat, steenbok, genet, rhinos, warthogs, springbok and who knows how many more we drove past but didn’t see. It’s going to be sad to leave Africa, it has been my favourite continent so far, we need to come back, we barely skimmed the top of it, we have many trips ahead of us (well, after the gap year). So long Africa, I’ll miss you but now it’s onto France.
Andrew (10 years old)
Hi guys, this blog is just going to be about what I thought of Africa.
The temperature was nice, little cold at some points. Beautiful wildlife, beautiful landscapes. The things I am going to miss is touching the seal, touching the pelican and seeing the dolphins swimming under us. We saw dolphins, whales, lions, zebra, wildebeest, elephants, monkeys, rhinos, oryx, small spotted genet, greater kudu, giraffes and many more that I don’t have time to name. There was this animal that I have always wanted to see in the wild and I saw it. It was a MEERKAT. I love seeing the wildlife of Africa because it’s unique. There is nothing quite like it. All the places were magical in their own way. I love seeing all the animals free and not trapped in a cage at a zoo.
Emma (almost 9 years old)
Here are some pictures from the 2 months in Africa.Читать далее
Paris, France by Mel
14–21 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
Bonjour!!!!
We are in Paris, France! My first home! It is so nice to be back.
We arrived in Paris on the 14th of June. I am glad we are here during summer as Kev and the kids only ever saw France in winter so far. France is always great, but it is even better during the warm season.
On the day we arrived, we took the metro to get to the little flat we booked for the week. We arrived at the address I got from the booking website, knock on the door and we were meet by a really astonished person who open the door. I explain that we are here for renting the place and she said that she and her husband and daughter lives here and the place is not for rent! Great!! Did we get scam? We never had issue with our booking website so far, but there is always a first. The people were super friendly, invited us for a coffee inside to try to sort it out. They even try to call a friend of them who might have a place for us to rent! Really friendly! I message on the booking website and the person say that they are at the location but can’t see us! What? What is the address: 17 of the street we are in. I checked my previous message: 27 of the street! Ok it was a mistake in the number of the street!!! Sorry!!! We get to the right place and settle. It was a bit scary for a minute, but the people were super friendly!
We are in a small apartment (typical for Paris) but that will be enough for a week. There is a washing machine in the flat and we start using it straight away as it is much needed!!!
We get in search of a boulangerie (which is easy as there are some everywhere in Paris) to get our first baguette sandwich of the trip. The kids and us loves those!!!! We found some and Andrew melt of pleasure eating his!! He says it is one of his favourite food.
After that, it is direction the centre of Paris to see my dad and his girlfriend Laurence. She is a ‘bouquiniste’: she sells books on the side of the Seine near Notre-Dames. There are 250 bouquinistes in Paris all along the seine. They all have 4 green boxes where they sell second hands or vintage books. They also sell postcards and some small souvenir now. The waiting list to get a spot is 8 years! Those green boxes have been here since 1859 and are still flourishing now. This is a permanent and well know fixture of Paris. Since 1992. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and it is said that ‘the Seine is the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves’! To get there, we got of the underground a few stop before to be able to walk in Paris. I am breathing Paris in!!! I love this city so much. I realise every time I am here, that I miss it terribly. Paris is beautiful: the buildings are full of history, there is statues and art everywhere (especially in the centre of Paris) The brasseries, cafes and restaurant are al over the place with their terrace filled with people enjoying a catch up with their friends or having a quick break during their busy day.
We get to where my Dad and Laurence are and it is great to be able to give my dad a hug. It is hard to be away from my family. Australia is very far from France! Anyway, we meet Laurence and then go to a café to catch up, Parisian style!
After a while, we go to see Notre-Dame. Laurence book’s stale is right near it, so it is a good opportunity. We only saw the outside as the line to get in is so big that we didn’t see the end of it! Notre-Dame burnt in 2019. The inside has been rebuilt and they are still working on the outside. They reopened it in December 2024 and a lot of people want to see it! We’ll have to try to see the inside at some point. Notre-Dame was built in the 12th century on the site of an older Romane church which was there since the 4th or 5th century. It almost got burnt during the French revolution, but luckily they didn’t to avoid burning the nearby hospital for the elderly. Notre-Dame is always a pleasure to see. The details of the façade are so many, you could spend a whole day just looking at it! We kept walking in the area for a while before heading to Celine and Thomas, some of my best friends and their 3 kids place. Last time we were in France, Andrew and Emma got along so well with them even if they didn’t speak the same language. It was the same again this time: after a few minutes a shyness, they were all playing together again.
It was nice being back chatting with my friends, natural, not like 3 years has pass since last time we saw each other. We spent the evening chatting and eating cheese and bread. About 10.30pm, Kev looked at the time and had to check that his time settings were right: it was still light outside!!! It is summer and the sun set late at that time of the year!
We left as the kids were getting tired. We got back in the underground and the kids were falling asleep.
The next day, we started the day with a French breakfast: croissant, pain au chocolat and pain au raisin from a nearby boulangerie. It is such a pleasure to be able to get some fresh delicious patisseries in the morning! After that, we went to the cemetery where my mum is, as it was her birthday and for once, I was there to put flowers on her grave on her special day. I know it doesn’t really matter as she is not here anymore, but the gesture was important for me.
Then we went to a restaurant with my dad, Laurence, my uncle Franck and aunt Bego. Again, it is always a pleasure to meet with my family as we don’t see each other a lot obviously. We stayed at the restaurant for around 5 hours! Chatting along and having a few drinks. A typically French Sunday! What a treat.
This time in Paris, I’ve decided to do some of the parcs and jardins (garden) around Paris as we didn’t really do that the last few times we were here because of the weather. So Monday the 16th, my dad picked us up to go to the Jardin d’acclimatation. This park was open in 1860 by Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie. It was originally a zoologic park where plants and animals from the colonies could be shown to the Parisians. In 1870, during the siege of Paris (due to the Franco-Prussian war), the animals were used to feed the Parisians! From the 1930s, the park focussed on children and family orientated activities. Nowadays, there are a lot of rides, playground, water play area… a dream for any children! The kids had a ball on a lot of rides. Andrew wanted to do all the extreme ones. Emma was a bit more hesitant, but she did several rides and found one she loved! The clock tower which goes up and down and turn. She was worried at first, but then you should have seen her smile! It was massive. We could also hear her going weeeee when the ride was going down. It was very fun!
When spent a fair bit of time there, walking around the park and doing attractions. After that we went for ice cream at Laurence’s place. Yum!
The next day, we went to another park, Le Jardin du Luxembourg. This park was built in 1612, by Marie de Medicis (Wife of Henry IV and mother of Louis the XIII) to accompany the palais du Luxembourg. It now belongs to the Senat. The garden is one of the most beautiful in Paris. There are trees, water features, chairs everywhere to sit and enjoy your day, beautiful old buildings. In the middle of the park, there is a basin where you can rent small boats. It has been going on since 1927. Clement Paudeau hand carved small boats and his wife hand sewn the sails and they decided to rent them to children for 2 sous. It was an instant success and still is. I believe the boats in used now are still the same (the sails have been repaired or changed). Now it is 8 euros for 30 minutes! But the kids looooooved it. You put the boat on the water and push it with a wooden cane. The wind pushes the little boats, and the kids have to run around the round water feature and push the boat back when it comes back to the side. It is brilliant. The kids are all around running and looking for their boats. The kids could have stay there the allllll day!
There are also play area, where you have to pay a small fee (that bugged me a bit: playground use to be free!) and we spent a bit of time there. After a drink with my dad and Laurence, the kids decided to spent some of their pocket money to have one more go on the boats.
We then meet with my brother David. It is so good to catch up with family. Hugging your loved one when it only happens every several years is something very special. We walked around the park a little bit then went for dinner in a brasserie where Andrew got his first ‘Steak haché’ of the trip. This is just minced meat, but it is delicious. It is one of his favourite dish in France and has been looking forward to have some. We came back late, again! The fact that it is still daylight until 10.30pm is weird and we keep forgetting how late it is!
On Wednesday, after a bit of school work, we went to the Park Floral. This park opened in 1969 and is located in the Bois de Vincennes (near the Castle). In there, there are a lot of plantes, flowers, trees and a whole bunch of wooden playground. The kids play on it for a bit, before going to do some accrobranche: these are ziplines, rope bridges, nets and other fun stuffs hanging in trees that you have to go through. Lots of fun for the kids! Andrew was extremely keen obviously, Emma a little more reserved but we asked her to try her best and she did amazing. Both kids had a lots of fun going through the obstacles. Andrew got a bit frustrated when he was stuck behind people who were slower than him! He does those things so quickly. The higher track goes up to 12 meters high and he did it easy-peasy. Emma did the second highest one and was amazing at it. She is growing in confidence with her body and it is a pleasure to watch. We are very proud of her.
After a stop for food, we said goodbye to my dad and Laurence (we’ll see them again in a few days) and went to do some Rosalies: they are vehicles that have 4 seats and pedals with a roof over it. We had fun taking turn driving (a bit stressful when the kids were driving!) and going around the park. Then the kids spent like what felt like hours on a flying fox and we decide to go back to our place. The underground was packed so we decide to get off it and walk as we were in the area where I used to live, and I wanted to show the kids my old building. I love walking in the city, watching people at the terrasse of brasseries and cafes, all the little shops everywhere (not in shopping centres!)… I love this city!
Thursday, we booked a drum lesson for Andrew. He has been missing his drumkit a lot lately, so it was a must. We found someone close to where we are staying and booked him a 2-hour lesson. Andrew really enjoyed it and did not want to leave at the end!
Then we meet David again at La Villette, a park in the 19 district in Paris which was built between 1984 and 1987 on the site of former slaughterhouse which were active from 1867 to 1974. In that park there is multiple museums, concert hall (I saw several concerts there in my youth!), theatres and multiple playgrounds for kids. This is a massive park, the 3 largest in Paris. We went to see one of the exhibitions of the moment: Bubble Planet. It was an exhibition around the theme of bubbles! There were 9 different rooms. The first one with screen on the floor with fish and bubbles that you could step on the make them move. The second room was filled with massive pink ballons. The third one was a dome with a video projected on the inside of it of weird, coloured bubbles, cell type image thing and with bubbles and water sound. The fourth one has more ballons, but the air flow was making the balloons come back to the middle and levitate and the colours were changing all the time making it a very visual and entertaining room. Then it was a room with small area where you could take picture in fun settings, including making a giant bubble around yourself! Then it was a room with a massive ball pit. After that a circular room with video projected on the wall of moving magical landscapes, very visual. Then a room filled with light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and mirror on the floor and walls: the light bulbs were changing colours in pattern, making it extremely mesmerizing. Then there was a room with some VR set: Andrew and David did that. I didn’t, VR stuff make me sick! They both said it was amazing. To finish we watched 2 robot arms make bubbles. It was a really good exhibition: visually beautiful, interactive and fun.
We finish the day with another brasserie dinner; that is the best in Paris. We went in that same brasserie 3 years ago and Emma had a banana juice then. We never find that same one again and she has been asking for it ever since. They still had it, which made Emma very happy. Andrew tried a steak tartare, which is raw meat. He loves his steak haché very blue, so he gave a try with the steak tartare, but he prefers steak haché: meat has to be a bit cooked for Andrew.
Then back to our place, late again!
Friday we did some blogging in the morning and pack again as we will leave early the next morning. In the afternoon, we went to get Emma’s Pandora charm from France: she got 2. We got her one that has a baguette and cheese on it and she got herself a cancan dancer with the French colour on it.
We spent the afternoon walking in Paris. The weather is wonderful at the moment (even a bit hot!) and it is a pleasure to walk in the city and taking on the sights. I could walk for ever in here! We found a lollie shop and had to make a stop. We also had a stop at a brasserie and got a couple of drinks and the kids got crepes: just enjoying people watching and simply enjoying the time together Parisian style!
The evening we went back to see Celine and Thomas and the kids. As soon as we got in, the kids were off with Theophile, Heloise and Timothee. They always play so well together! As always, we always have a great time when we are there. The time always goes to fast. Back to our place late again.
The next morning, we got the car we are renting for the rest of our France trip and are off for more adventure.
MelЧитать далее
Merci ma sœur pour c'est super bon moment et merci d'avoir mis des photos avec dada, merci beaucoup.😘 Gros bisous 🌞 [Dada]
Paris, France by Kev
14–21 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
14.6.2025. We landed in Paris around 6:30 in the morning. Got through immigration very quickly, grabbed our bags and hopped on the train into the city. We found our apartment, well we thought we did. Mel got a message saying the address was 27. There was some confusion when a lady came out and said that her family owned and lived here. What's going on here? Her partner got home shortly after and a lot of French was exchanged. After which we were invited in for a coffee while we got it sorted out. Thinking maybe we'd been scammed, Mel sent more messages to the person through booking.com. Apparently the address is 17, not 27. We thanked the family for their hospitality and walked a little further up the street. We found a lady there and Mel had to show her the message saying 27 as she didn't believe us. Anyway, we got shown around the apartment and started making a mess straight away. We went out and had our first baguette sandwich for a late breakfast, early lunch, kids smashed them. After which we took the metro to see Pappy Jean. We walked along the Seine until we found him and his partner Laurence working a little shop on the sidewalk. We then went across the street to a bar for a chat and a beer. We took the metro to Mel's friends, Thomas and Celine, after that. We had lots of cheese and bread, pate and other stuff. The kids played and we talked. I looked at my phone, 21:45? That can't be right, it's still light out. I checked my time settings, yep GMT+2. WTH is going on here. I have never been to Paris in summer, apparently the sun doesn't go down until after 10. That's a new one for me. By the time we got back and put the kids to bed it was almost midnight. Goodnight.
15.6.2025. This morning we had a traditional French breakfast, pain au chocolat, croissant and pain au raisin. Delicious. Mel's dad then picked us up from the apartment and we went to the cemetery. We got some flowers and visited Mel's mum. After that we went for lunch. Jean picked an Italian restaurant on the Seine, across from Laurence's shop. She has some of the green boxes along the Seine, and sells books and drawings. We met Jean's brother, Franck and his wife Begonia there. Time for apero, which means we're having a drink before food. After lunch we just sat in the restaurant talking, having a few more drinks, grappas to help digest. It was after 5 by the time we left the restaurant. We said our goodbyes and walked to the metro to head to the apartment. We stopped at a small supermarket and got some pasta for dinner. Once more we were weirded out by the fact it was after 8pm and still broad daylight. Dinner, bath and bed.
16.6.2025. Today we went to Le jardin d’acclimatation. To those who don't speak French(me), that's an amusement park here. Jean was with us, though we couldn't get him on any rides. We tried pretty much all the rides, starting with a Ferris wheel, finishing with rides that the kids found were their favourites. Andrew loved the roller coaster called the “red dragon”, Emma loved a clock tower ride that went up and down and spun around. At first she was scared to try it, so I went on with her. We had to drag her off it at the end. After all that fun, we went to Laurence's apartment for a visit and ice cream. A nice place, with lots of books. She is a published author, and gifted us a couple of her creations. We got dropped back at the apartment, ate cheesy pasta and went to bed in the daytime. Will slowly get used to that.
17.6.2025. Today we're off to le parc du Luxembourg. We stopped at a boulangerie for baguette sandwiches and ate them for lunch on the way to the metro. We met Jean and Laurence there, and had a walk around the park. We headed to an open area with a lake in the middle. Here they rent small sailboats, the kids loved it. There's no way to steer them, you're given a stick to push them away from the side, then you watch them get blown around the lake. After that we walked to a small playground area. The kids played, but all they wanted to do was go back to the boats. We stopped at a restaurant in the park and had some refreshments, beer and ice-cream. Then, since the kids made such a big stink about it, we decided to head back to the boats. Jean and Laurence had had enough of walking, so they bid us farewell and left. The kids had another go with the boats while we waited for Mel's brother, David, to turn up. He had some stuff for the kids and we were all really happy to see each other. Mel and David chatted for a bit, then we went to a brasserie for some dinner and more catching up. Brasseries are more my style, pub meals and beer on tap. Andrew had his first steak haché of the trip, and was not disappointed. Once again, time got away from us. It was after 10 when we left the brasserie, and still daylight. There was lots of catching up to do. We planned when to meet up with David again and hopped on the metro to head to the apartment.
18.6.2025. Guess what! We're doing something for the kids today! Jean picked us up and we went to parc floral. A huge park with lots of trees and flowers. Also a parkour area with ziplines and rope bridges. There were 4 courses, yellow being the easiest, then green, blue and finally red. We started with the green, which was too easy for Andrew but a good starting point for Emma. Emma struggled a little at the start, stressing a little with the safety lines. We'd talked about brain fog, and what happens when you stress/panic in situations, and that you need to slow down, take a breath and think. The kids did everything themselves when on the course, so I couldn't just go up and help, Emma had to help herself. Which she did. After only a small moment of trouble with a safety line, Emma steeled herself and got it done. After that, Emma had no trouble. Switching her safety lines, moving around trees on platforms, all while 10m above the ground at times. Andrew moved through the courses with ease, I knew he would, and ended up finishing the hardest one with little to no trouble. While Emma is not quite at home as Andrew is with this sort of thing, she made me proud with her progress. She was a bit frightened to do the ziplines, but did them anyway. Emma finished with the easiest course, too easy in the end, Andrew with the hardest. 3 of the 4 courses done each, and we'd run out of time. We went and had a late lunch, then said goodbye to Jean and Laurence. The kids played in the park a bit longer. Mel and I went and rented a 4 wheel, 4 pedal “bike”. Andrew had been bugging to have a go and we thought, why not. After that we headed back towards the apartment. The metro was packed, so we decided to walk a bit more. We got off where Mel used to live and had a look from the outside. We walked a fair bit, stopping at a supermarket. Grabbed a couple of things, including a bottle of red to share. Back at the apartment, I made a quick dinner for the kids. Steak haché and veges. Searched in vain throughout the apartment for a bottle opener, can't believe a french apartment that is not equipped with a bottle opener. Anyway, off to bed.
19.6.2025. Slow start to the day, we seem to be getting later and later to bed. Breakfast was had, a big loaf of cake that Mel had growing up. Next stop, a drum lesson for Andrew. He had told us he'd been missing his drums, so Mel found a teacher. Better yet, the guy spoke English, yay! Mel didn't have to translate. After that we headed towards La Villette, to meet up with David and have a walk around the park. First we found a boulangerie for sandwiches, we were starving. The kids had a play and Mel and David talked more. There is an activity near the park called “bubble planet”, entrance fees were paid and in we went. The first room was an interactive floor, with fish swimming around that you could step on and make move faster. Next a huge room with massive balloons. Lots of fun whacking them at the kids. Then a big room, set up as a bathtub/ball pit. It was surprisingly hard to move around in, I had to help Emma a fair bit. There were some interactive things to play, a pathway through hanging lights that changed colours and timing. Finishing with a VR experience Andrew and David tried. We walked some more, before deciding to eat at a brasserie. Andrew tried his first steak tartare. He was happy to try it but it's not his favourite, he prefers steak haché. We said our goodbyes as we won't see David again now until September, and headed back to the apartment. Bath for the kids and bed.
20.6.2025. We did some blogging this morning and then packed. In the afternoon, we went out and found a Pandora store. Emma is collecting charms around the world, and anywhere there is a Pandora shop, we get her a charm. There were some really nice charms here, and Emma couldn't decide which she wanted. So two were bought. Emma used her own money to get the second. After that, we walked through a touristy area some more. We stopped at a cafe. Kids got Nutella crepes, Mel had wine and I tried another of France's beers. We talked and people watched. We deliberately picked a cafe in the shade. Surprising how hot the sun can feel here, having only been to France in winter before. I ordered a coffee and asked for the bill. I could have sat there a few more hours, enjoying the beer and company, but we had a place to be. We had another night planned to be spent with Celine, Thomas and their kids, so we set off. We had planned to take the underground, but it was nice outside, so we decided to walk. We spent another nice night with friends and the kids always play well together. We said our goodbyes and headed for the metro. Straight to bed as soon as we got to the apartment. Off to a new area tomorrow.
KevЧитать далее
Paris, France by the kids
14–21 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
On the 14th we were still on the plane going to Paris, it was a long plane but luckily there was a tv, I played the games on it till we landed, when we got out, we went to passport check, we went through it pretty quick. Then we went to the metro station (it was in the airport) we took the metro to another station where we went on another one that took us to our hotel. When we got there, it turned out that it was someone’s house not the hotel, we thought we got scammed, but when mum checked there emails the owner had texted and they said it was house 27, not 17. When we got there, we went into our room and it was pretty nice, we then went to out to a boulangerie get our first baguette sandwich, it was unbelievably good, too good to explain, it was, perfect. After that we went to see Papy Jean (our French grandad), we met him just on the side of the seine across Notre-Dame, we chatted for a while, it’s nice to see family members you haven’t seen in a while after that we just walked around Paris a bit to just get used to it then we went to some of mums friends called Thomas and Celine, mum and dad chatted to the parents while me and Emma played with the kids (Heloise, Timothe and Theophile), it was a little hard when no one can understand your language, we played for a while but sadly we had to go home. When we got home, we went to sleep.
On the 15th we woke up and went over to Papy Jean, we stayed there for a while and then we went over to the cemetery, the one where mum’s mum is buried, when we got there, we went and found the grave. I miss our grandma a lot, but it’s probably nothing compared to mum’s sadness. After that we went to a restaurant with some of the French family. It was an Italian restaurant, so I got a lasagna, it was pretty nice, Emma didn’t finish it, so I got to finish their’s, dad was hoping he was going to finish Emma’s, but he didn’t, I did. After that we went to a shop got some pasta and cheese, then we went to the hotel and made dinner then we went to sleep.
On the 16th we were going to go to the parc floral so we could do this rope thing in the trees, there was some rope bridges and ziplines, it sounded pretty cool, but then we were looking at the website and saw they only did it on Wednesday, sad. So, we changed course and went to another park called Jardin d’acclimation, I thought it would be a park like with trees and a playground, I was wrong. It wasn’t really a park, well I guess you could call it a park, well an amusement park, why, because there were rides everywhere. When we first came in, we saw lots of rides, the first one I saw was the Ferris Wheel, I thought it would be a good idea to go on that first so we could see all the rides and then decide what ride to do next. We stayed at the top for a while with was good so we could get a good look out at all the other rides. There was a couple of roller coasters, there were five roller coasters but only four were in action, when the Ferris Wheel finished, we just started walking towards the closest one. We didn’t go straight to the roller coaster, we stopped at a few other rides on the way. When we got in line, we noticed that we were in line for another roller coaster that was right next to the one we wanted to go on, stayed in the line because we were in the line so why leave. When we got on it was pretty fun, we did dips and then we went back up, and then it started spinning. When we got off, I was dizzy, but I didn’t hesitate, I went straight to the other roller coaster when I hopped in, I was really excited. When it started it started up slow because it was going up a slope, when we got right up to the top we took off, it was going really fast, it was awesome. The ride only lasted about thirty seconds, but it was really cool then I remembered I had seen another roller coaster that was even bigger, so I started going in the direction it was in. I went I on a few other rides on the way, but none were as fun as the roller coaster when we got to the next roller coaster, I saw that it was called the red dragon. When I got in line it was like three times longer than the other one, with is hopefully a good sign. When I was watching I saw that the ride would do a course and then when you think it’s ending it goes on a big turn table turns around and then does another course and then goes back to the start. When I got on, me and dad (dad also came along), we got to go in the front which was cool, but when it started the auction in my brain for the title of best ride was like the red dragon burst in and one the auction by a light year. Which means, IT WAS AWESOME, was it absolutely amazing? Yes. Best ride by far? Yes. Is it a ride I could spend all day doing? Yes. Will mum and dad not let me do that? Sadly, yes. After that we did a bunch of other rides and then we went home and went to sleep.
On the 17th, we went to the park called le Jardin du Luxembourg we were going to meet Papy Jean there, when we got there, we walked around a bit and then I saw a fountain. Then mum said they had boats for rent, well toy boats, I thought they would be like remote controlled boats, but they weren’t. They were little sailing boats that would get pushed around by the wind and when they would sail close to the side of the fountain (it was a big fountain like 15 meters across all ways) we would have sticks and would aim it and then push it. The boats were cool they were like proper sailing boats but shrunken, they had flags of different country’s on them, my boat was flying the flag of Angola. I liked pretending it was a proper ship, I called it an Angolan merchant ship I was peaceful and ready to trade, there was this little house in the middle of the fountain for ducks, I called it the duck house, my ship kept trying to trade with it when I didn’t want it to. The reason why I didn’t want it to, is because whenever it hit it, it got stuck there for ages. After that we went over and played on a playground for a while and then we went back to the boat place again, this time I was sailing for Brazil, I was I Brazilian navy ship, I crashed into a total of 24 ship and almost sunk three. They were built in a way that they were annoyingly practically impossible to sink. After that we went to see Tonton David, one of our French uncles, when we met, he gave mum a really big hug, then he said hello to me, dad and Emma. We chatted for a while, mum got emotional, I would to if I were seeing Emma for the first in three years and I didn’t even see them much before that. When we left, we went back to the hotel to sleep.
On the 18th we went to the parc floral we were doing the rope course, when we got there, we put on the equipment and then watched the safety demonstration, there were four course yellow, green, blue and red. Yellow was easy peasy, green was a little harder, blue was a bit of a step up and red was the hardest, we started out at green, it was too easy for me, then we did blue, it was fun. When we finished blue Emma decided to do yellow while I went on to red, red was the best it was really fun. After that we went home and slepttttttttt…………... zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz.
On the 19th we went to a park called la Villette, we were meeting Tonton David there, when we came out of the metro, we found him and then we went in. It wasn’t really a park, well it sort of was there was a big open area with grass and in the middle of the park there was a river in the middle with bridge over it we went over the bridge and we saw a huge slide. The biggest one I had ever seen (that wasn’t in a water park) the slide was shaped like a dragon, it was pretty cool, I was going up to try it but then a saw that it was closed off, not happy. Then I noticed a big building called bubble world I had seen posters for it, and they looked awesome, so I was keen to go in. When we went in Tonton David paid for it (I love him) then we went in, we were told there are nine rooms, the first room the floor was a screen and there were fish that if we stepped on them, they would go really fast, it was fun. Me and Emma were stepping on them and having fun, we appointed ourselves to clearing out a certain area, there were 4 types of animals, turtles, sting rays, some skinny pointy fish and a hammer head shark. After that room there was a room that was about 8x8 meters and it was filled with pink balloons, the balloons weren’t your average balloons, they were like 10 times bigger and tougher. If I chucked one up and then hit it really hard it went flying, I liked trying to hit people, but I didn’t have very good aim, so it mostly just went in random directions. When I did hit people, it was normally dad, dad would then turn around and start chasing me, it was fun, dad had a good strategy, he would barge through, and the balloons would fly up so dad could then hit them at me. After that room there was a room with one really big dome, in the dome it looked like you were in a glass dome with different liquids pouring on me, also the way the dome was shaped, it made all the sound in the dome reverberate, it was cool. After that room there was a room with lots of silver balloons there were also fans that were blowing them into the middle they were fun to play with. The room after that had four things where we could take photos in, the first one was where you could make it look like your head is on a plate of balls. The next one was a bathtub full of rubber ducks that I could lay in, the next one was the best, it had a ring that I could pull up around myself, but the ring had the liquid you use to make bubbles on it. So when I pulled it up, I pulled a bubble over myself, it was awesome. The next one was a bubble that I could sit in. the room after that was a ginormous pool of balls, it was very hard to move in. The one after that was a fake hot air balloon with screens all around it making it look like a proper one. After that it was a small maze thing with lots of lights bulbs hanging everywhere, also there were mirrors as walls, so it looked like it was never ending. After that there was a VR thing, I did it and it was pretty cool, that was the last thing so after that we got out and went home and slept.
On the 20th we were going to go get Emma a pandora charm, we went to a pandora shop and there were two that Emma couldn’t decide which on to get. Mum and dad were going to by one for them, so Emma decided to buy the cheapest one and get mum and dad to buy the other one. After that, we went to have a walk around Paris. We found a café and Mum and Dad had drinks while me and Emma had a Nutella crepe. I had ice cream on it and Emma had whipped cream and it was very nice. Soon after we kept walking and find a lolly shop that was called Pirate lollies. You would get a paper bag and the lollies were all in barrel, then you scoop up the lollies you want and put it in the paper bag. You pay 5 euros per 100 grammes. We then kept walking because we were going to Thomas and Celine. When we got there, we got straight into playing. The first time we were there, we played Monopoly game but did not finish it, so we were going to play again and see who won. We did not finish it this time either, we ended up throwing money everywhere. Emma started it, not me (Emma edit: Andrew is a very big liar, he started it!). It was one of the funnest day of the travel. I love playing with Theophile, Heloise and Timothee. Then we went back home and slept.
The end
Andrew (10 years old)
We are in Paris!
On the 14th we landed in Paris. We were in the airport, so we took the metro to the middle of Paris. Then from there we took more metros to close to where we booked. The email said we were in 27 but we were meant to go to 17. So, we arrived at some one’s house. They let us stay there until we worked it out. So, we went to the wrong address at first, but we ended up finding the right one. The person that we booked the place from did not say sorry once we found them, all they said was “it was meant to say 17”. We set up and then went out for a late breakfast or an early lunch. We had a baguette sandwich. It was delicious. We kept saying “The French know how to cook properly.” After that we went to see Papy Jean and Laurence. They were down at the front of Notre-Dame selling books. We saw the outside of Notre-Dame because there was too big of a line up. It was being rebuilt. Then we walked in Paris. Lots of buildings. I could smell lots of foods. Then we went to Celine and Thomas for the evening. We played with Theophile, Heloise and Timothe. I had fun playing with the other three kids. We stayed up late playing. By the time we got home it was a bit before midnight.
On the 15th we had a French breakfast. We had pain au chocolat and croissants. After we had breakfast, we went to the cemetery to see mammy Chris because it was her birthday. It was hard to see mammy Chris’s grave because she was very important to us. I’m sad I don’t remember her properly, all I have left of her are photos and a toy. Then we went to Papy Jean’s house to print paper. Then we had lunch with the French family. Me and Andrew got a lasagna each and it was good. We left around 5pm. Did some shopping and then back home. The sun is still up at about 10:30 pm.
On the 16th we went to an amusement park. They had a Ferris wheel, a bunch of roller coasters, a few boat rides, some rides where you sit in seats and you go up high and then down fast, loads of rides. Over a hundred rides. My favourite ride was the clock tower. It is a ride where you go up, up, up, and then they let you down fast but a kid version. I was a little scared to go on some of the rides at first but then it turned out I liked some of the rides. I was happy mum made me go on the clock tower because I loved it. After the amusement park we went to Laurence’s place for ice-cream.
On the 17th we went to a park called Jardin du Luxembourg. It had a pond where you could rent a boat for half an hour. Me and Andrew rented it twice each. We got a stick to push it around. When the boat gets in touch with the wind it either turns or goes fast. In the park there was also a playground. Me and Andrew played a bit and then went to the bar for drinks and ice-cream. Then we met with mums’ brother, David. He brought all of us stuff. Well, first of all, he gave mum the biggest hug ever. They haven’t been in touch for ages, and they were so happy to see each other. He got me and Andrew a toy each that had $100 euros in it which is about $160 dollars. He gave dad a face scarf. We stayed in the park for a little bit and then went for dinner. Andrew got his first steak hache and I got a burger with a steak hache on it.
On the 18th we went to park floral. It had playgrounds and rope courses. We had booked to do the rope courses, but we got there early as usual, so we played a bit. We got ready and then they taught us how to clip ourselves in, because nobody will be up there to help you. Yellow is the easiest. Green is second easiest. Blue is second hardest and red is the hardest. I started with green and then blue and just for fun yellow. Well to be honest, they were all the same stuff just higher up. There were a few ziplines. I was a little scared to do the ziplines at first, but then I remembered I can’t fall, I am always clipped in. someone invented a clip that you put on at the beginning, and you can’t take it off until the end. So, you are always safe. I could never have done it without mum and dad. They kept telling me that I couldn’t fall and encouraging me. I am vvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy proud of myself. I impressed myself that day. After a little bit, I got better and I never thought I would say this, keen to do a few more ziplines.
On the 19th Andrew had a drum lesson. We waited outside for Andrew to be done. We could hear Andrew playing a little bit from outside and he had a good beat. I read my kindle. When Andrew was done, we went to Villette to meet Tonton David. We went to a park with him. We play a little bit and then we went to a place called bubble planet. Tonton David paid for us all. There were 9 or 10 rooms. in the first room you were under water and there were water animals swimming under you, and you had to step on them. (The animals were on screens.) in the second room there were balloons. We kept hitting the balloons at each other. We got very sweaty in there. In the third room there was a big dome in the middle of the of the room that we went into. It looked like cells inside the human body. In the fourth room there were more balloons but smaller and dad taught me how to spin the balloons. In the fifth room there were photo things. There was this photo one that I really liked. You would stand on a platform and pull a rope. The rope would lift a ring that made a bubble around you. In the sixth room there was a big ball pit. You had to get in by stairs. I could barely move. Dad had to pull me back to the stairs. In the seventh room there was a platform that we stood on and watched a screen as we went through portals to different lands. (It was just screens that we watched.) in the eighth room there were loads of light bulbs. They kept changing colours. It was beautiful. In the ninth room you could get VR headsets. I didn’t because I don’t like VR stuff. In the tenth room there were two robot hands that had stuff to make bubbles. My favourite thing was when they used a big net. They would dip it in the bubble mixture, take it out and hold it up to a few fans. The wind from the fans would blow the bubbles and make very big clumps of bubbles. Some of the clumps of bubbles were the size of me. Then we went to look at the shop to get the photos they took of us.
On the 20th we did blog in the morning and then went to walk in Paris. While we were walking, we spotted a big lolly shop. There were baskets of lollies that you could get lollies out of and put then in a bag. Then you would go weigh the lollies and it cost 5 euros for a hundred grams. Then we went and found pandora to get my charm for Paris. I couldn’t decide between a baguette with cheese or a cancan dancer. Soon I gave in and got both. Mum and dad got me the baguette with cheese, and I got myself the cancan dancer (Mum and dad got me the more expensive one because they are nice and loving). Then we walked to Celine and Thomos’s house. We played with the kids. We ended a have a pillow fight. It started out as a monopoly game and then a monopoly money fight and then a pillow fight. We left their place a ten, got home and went straight to bed. Night-night.
YOU DID IT, YOU FINISHED THE BLOG FOR PARIS. WELL DONE.
Emma (almost 9 years old)Читать далее
Mont Saint Michel, France by Mel
21–25 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
Bonjour du Mont St Michel (Hello from the Mont St Michel),
Saturday the 21st of June, we left Paris to go to the Mont St Michel.
We hired a car for the rest of our trip in France. I did the math, train for 4 people against car and the price was very close. Having a car make it easier for us, so we decided to go for a car in France.
It took us around 5 hours with lunch break to get to Beauvoir, a little town just before the Mont St Michel. The house we are staying is really nice. They even have toys for the kids, which they got in very quickly.
As it was the ‘Fete de la musique’ (music celebration day), we went to Avranches, the bigger town, to listen to some music. I always loved the fete de la musique. People are out in the street and there are bands, dance parties, music everywhere. In Avranches we saw 2 different dance groups: one doing Zumba and the other one country dance. Then we listen to a 3 English person band (one bass, one guitar/singer and one drummer) playing some rock songs. They were across a little restaurant, so we got some food and drinks and stayed there for a while listening to them. Kev and I could have stayed longer, but it was getting late and the kids were getting tired, so we called it a night and went back. On the way back, we saw a band made of teenage kids playing. We listened to a couple of their songs and left as Emma was falling asleep!
It was a good evening!
The next day, we went to the Mont St Michel.
First a bit of history about it: The granite rock of Mont Saint-Michel was originally known as Mont Tombe. In 708, the archangel Michel appeared in a dream-vision to Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, and asked him to build a sanctuary in his name. The bishop didn’t listen the first 2 dreams, but he decided to do it after the third dream. There is a fun story here: In one of the churches of Avranches is the skull of St Aubert. The skull has a hole in it and it was said that angry to have not been obeyed the first 2 times, The archangel Michel, touched the bishop on the head and left a hole in it, hence why the bishop listened the third time! He built a small church on top of Mont Tombe and called it the Mont Saint Michel.
In 966, a community of Benedictines established itself and built the first church. At the same time, a village began to develop below the Mount to welcome the first pilgrims.
During the 11th-century, as more and more pilgrims come to the Mont Saint Michel, four crypts are added around the tip of the rock, and a large abbey church is built on top of these. In the 13th century, Philippe Auguste (the king of France), after the conquest of Normandy (adding it to the French kingdom), give some money to build in Gothic style, the Merveille: This is a of two three-storey buildings, topped by the cloister and the monks’ refectory.
During the Anglo-Franco 100 years war (14-15th centuries), some military constructions were made to protect the Mont and were proven efficient, as the Mont withstand a siege of almost 30 years. It is the only French stronghold which was never taken by the English during that war.
But during the siege, part of the choir in the Abbey collapsed and was replaced at the end of the siege by the gothic choir that we can see now.
During the French revolution, the Mont became a prison until 1863, where the prison was closed and the Mont Saint Michel open to the public again.
In 1979, UNESCO added Mont Saint-Michel and its bay to its list of World Heritage sites.
I always love knowing the history of places: they always have several lives, uses, phases and I love imagining what they looked like 1000 years ago and how was life back then. Touching a wall that was touched by hands several centuries prior never cease to amaze me.
The Mont Saint Michel is one of the most visited tourist site in France. Being almost in the high season, I was a bit worried it would be too busy, but it was ok. There were a lot of people there, but we could move around and walk easily (which is hard to do during the peak season).
We decided to walk to the Mont Saint Michel instead of taking the car. We learnt that the parking price is insane, so we did the cheap and healthy thing and walked for an hour. The country side is beautiful, so it was no bother.
When we arrived, we walked toward the abbey which is at the top of the island. I love walking on the rampart around the place and in the small zigzagging streets of the Mont. The abbey is wonderful to visit: there is so much more than just the church. As explain before, monks have been living here for centuries, so there are all their living areas to see as well. We took our time to visit and appreciate the place. There was a mass in the morning and we stayed at the back of the church for a bit to listen to the pipe organ being played while people were singing. I am not a believer but it is amazing to hear music in religious places.
After the abbey, we walked around the Mont and did the 4 small museums of the island: the maritime museum; the archeoscope which has a 10 minutes show about the history of the Mont with lovely light, sound and a maquette of the Mont St Michel emerging from water (it was nice); the historic residence of Knight Bertrand Du Guesclin and his wife Tiphaine de Raguenel, a famous astrologer who used to foretell the destiny of the world in the stars who lived in the 14th century. One of the object in the house, was a chastity belt that wifes of knights were forced to wear when their husband was going away for months or years sometime, which open conversation with the kids on the horror women in place and time, had and still have to go through. We finished with the historical museum with the dungeon used as prison.
We of course went through some of the souvenir shops (there are a lot of them) and bought our magnet. We walked back to our place and were pretty happy to arrive! We were on our feet all day and bodies (well Kev and I) were starting to hurt! It is not fun getting old! The kids were fine!!!
We had a nice evening playing board games and then bed.
The next day, we didn’t do much. The kids did their blog and Kev and I tried to plan the UK part, but it took us for ever to decide of the itinerary and looking for cheap but not too horrible accommodation in London. We didn’t and gave up after several hours of looking though website we ended up with a massive headache and quitted! We’ll have to do another planning day soon.
Our last day in Beaulieu we went back to Avranches to visit the historical area this time. I had a map of Avranche with the point of interest on it and an itinerary already planned. The kids were in charge: they had the map and take turn to take us to the next place of interest on the map and read the information about it. They both did great at reading the map. They only needed help a couple of time. There was 21 stops on the map and we did it all (actually there were 22, but the last one was to far for my liking so we skipped it!) We saw statues of historical peoples, monuments dedicated to people who died at war, old towers from the wall which use to protect the city, the old fort, some beautiful gardens, an art gallery, houses and buildings from the 11th century, half timbered house from the 14th century, churches and basilica, we walked on cobbled narrow streets with moss covered walls.. It was a great, interesting and fun tour for the four of us. One of my favourite stop was the Scriptorial where manuscripts written by the monks of Mont Saint Michel from the 11th century and up, are kept and a few are on display. There were also explanations on how and with which tool they used to work, how to make the colours, the different roles (the scribe, the rubricator, who add the details and lettering like capitals in different colours, the one who wrote annotation to give more information and details about the text, the one doing the illustration and I’m sure I forgot some). It was super interesting and looking at books written 10 centuries ago, with the attention to details they had was incredible.
It took us the whole day and it was a wonderful day.
The next morning we were off again to Rennes, a bigger town 1 hour away from Beauvoir, to see my wonderful niece Manon and Nathan, her boyfriend. Excited!!!
See you there.
MelЧитать далее
Le Mont Saint Michel, France by Kev
21–25 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
21.6.2025. Up early, finish the last bit of packing and wait for the person to turn up and get the apartment key. After that we walked to a boulangerie for breakfast stuff, then onto a cafe for coffee. They didn't mind we brought our own nibblies. An uber was ordered and we were off to Gare du Lyon, to pick up our hire car. The bags just fitted, yay. Mel wasn't all that crazy about driving in Paris again, but they did great. We took the back roads instead of the motorway, trying to save some money by not paying tolls. Hoping to see some more of the countryside too. We arrived at our new apartment in Beauvoir around 5, and are happy with the place. A nice, neat and clean place that has everything we could need for a few days. There's even some toys here, the kids haven't had toys for a while and we're happy to play. Today is also la feté de la musique, I'm sure I spelt that wrong. We headed into town and found where they were celebrating. We watched some dancing, then listened to some live rock music. Three English blokes rocking out. They were pretty good. We stopped and listened to a group of young people, school age I reckon, playing. They were also pretty good. By now it was around 10pm, so we headed back to the apartment and put the kids to bed.
22.6.2025. Today we're heading to Mont St.Michel, which started as a small Abbey in 708. The bishop of a nearby town, had a dream, where the Archangel Michel, came to him and instructed him to build an Abbey on a nearby island. The Abbey grew bigger throughout the years, as did the small township around it. Now it takes up the whole of the small island. We walked all the way to the island from our apartment. It took around an hour. Everyone is so much better at walking without whinging, for that I am eternally grateful. The kids start talking to each other and playing games as we walk. I don't think they even realise sometimes how far we've gone. We saw Mont St Michel start to grow in the distance. When we got close enough, you could see the angel on top shining. It's a copper statue gilded with gold. We walked across the bridge leading to the island. For most of the time there hasn't been a bridge, and pilgrims, who had already travelled for days or weeks, would have to wait on the mainland for the tide to go out, before making the crossing. We have it easy, walking across a nice flat bridge, not even getting our shoes dirty. The tide was out during our visit and we saw lots of people walking around the island and further out while the water was gone. We entered the township through an old drawbridge, looks like it hadn't been raised in a long time. We know from our time here that the Abbey started small, growing over time. Then was a fortified stronghold during war that was never breached. We visited the Abbey, and heard some singing and the pipe organ as Sunday mass started. We explored everything we could, seeing in places where the architecture had changed from Roman to gothic. We saw where it was starting to fall down in places and they were keeping a very close eye on it. We had some overpriced baguette sandwiches for lunch, then visited the museums. Four museums to be exact. One focusing on ships and maritime, another one had a miniature of Mont St Michel that rose up through water and talked about its history. There was another that showed us the rooms of a knight and lady astrologer. Finally we had a tour through a small dungeon. At one point in Mont St Michel’s history it housed up to 600 prisoners. We finished our day with a walk around the town area, then racing back up a bit to watch the tide roll back in. It moves fast as it's very flat for miles around. The tide has claimed many lives over the centuries of the Abbey being here, and people still get caught out from time to time. There is a rescue vehicle with huge wheels stationed at the entrance, just in case. While it would have been cool to see it cruising around, kinda glad it wasn't needed today. We had planned on hopping on the shuttle bus to cut the walk back in half, but after seeing the waiting line we decided we could make the walk again. We went back a different way than this morning, and made a stop at a biscuit et gateau place. We grabbed some Madeleine for breakfast, a bottle of local cider and some local beers. We found a boulangerie and grabbed a baguette to go with dinner. We made it back to the apartment, I made a coffee then got started on dinner. After everyone was fed and showered, we watched a little tv and went to bed.
23.6.2025. Blogging/schoolwork day. We went shopping later in the day, just a quick shop, pasta, meat and cheese basically. Oh and a couple different local beers. We went back to the boulangerie where we got our baguette yesterday and ordered some baguette sandwiches. Freshly made and bloody delicious. Grabbed another baguette for dinner tonight, and some sweet stuff. Can't go to a boulangerie and not get something sweet. Now we're back at the apartment, stuff has been put away, coffee has been made and kids are blogging again. Drank some local beers, cooked some pasta and local sausages for dinner, everything was really nice.
24.6.2025. Today we're going for a drive to Avranches, a small city near us. There's a lot of history here, Avranches dates back to the 9th century b.c, and we're going to see some of it today. They have a map, in English, that the kids are going to use to lead us around the city. We walked and the kids navigated. We found historical landmarks around the city, some from both world wars. Some from well before that. We read and we learnt as we walked. We climbed stairs, past an old well, that led to a tower and the old wall of the city. I like viewing cities from the tops of towers. We stopped at this point for baguette sandwiches and a coffee, before continuing our historical visit. The next stop was a museum with manuscripts from the Mont Saint Michel, written by the monks and centuries old. We visited some big churches and finished with a nice walk through a park. We made our way back to the car and drove back to the apartment. Rest, lots of walking today, dinner and bed.
25.6.2025. Packed up this morning and loaded the car. We're off to Renne, a city not too far and home to our niece Manon. I'm sick as a dog, sneezing and snot everywhere. We got there and checked into our next apartment. Manon and her partner Nathan came for a quick visit. We went and found a baguette sandwich for lunch, then I went to bed. We had a lazy afternoon/evening, played some games, had some dinner and back to bed.
KevЧитать далее
Mont Saint Michel, France by the kids
21–25 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C
On the 21st we were still in Paris, we were going to drive to Beauvoir, the main attraction in Beauvoir is Mont Saint Michel, mum is not happy they picked this day because today is the fete de la musique (it means celebration of music in English). The drive was going to be 5 hours, but where do we get the car? Simple, we go to the car hiring place and pick up the car we hired, when we got the car, we started driving. 5 hours in the future, when we got there, we went to our room, put all our stuff down and went to a place that said there was going to be a bit of music there, when we got there, we saw there was a stage and quite a few people. When the music started it was pretty nice, a little after some dancing started, we then went over to a pub where they were playing rock music, after that we went to the hotel to sleep.
On the 22nd we went to the Mont Saint Michel, here is some history on what it is. Supposedly in 708 (8th century), the archangel Michel, appears in Aubert of Avranches (who is a bishop) dream and told him to build a church in his on a rocky island for pilgrims. The island had a really big rock on it, that is where the church got built. The only people who lived there for a long time were monks. In 966, a community of Benedictines settled themselves there and built a bigger church. At the same time, they were making a village below it to welcome the first pilgrims. As the number of pilgrims increased, the original church became too small to fit them all in. In the 11th century they built four crypts around the tip of the rock, before constructing a even bigger church on top of these. In the 13th century, they added more to the church but this time in a gothic style, the first church was made in a roman style. During the French Revolution, the monks had to abandon the church which then become a state prison. The church returned to being a church in 1863 and many prisoners got transported away. When we got there, it was ginormous, we went into the church and looked at all the rooms, there was a giant fireplace, like 6-7 meters wide and 2.5 meters tall. We kept going looking at stuff, there were lots of high ceilings, after the church there was still a lot in the village bellow to explore, we saw a thing where you can go to all four museums with the same ticket, so we got it and we did all the museums. The first one was a museum about boats, the next was history on the Mont Saint Michel, and the one after that was a house where a knight used to live and the next one was a historical prison museum. After the museums we went to the hotel to watch a movie and sleep.
On the 23rd we stayed home doing blog, we did it for a while and then we went out to the shops, got some food, then came back and then finished our blog and watched a movie then we went to sleep.
On the 24th we went to Avranches, Avranches is a town that is not far away from where we are, we had a map of where all the monuments are, and there are actually quite a lot. Me and Emma were going to lead so we had the map, and we were learning how to use a map, (I sort of already knew how to read a map, well a little bit). The first thing we were going to see was a big statue of one of the napoleons generals. After that we went to see the town hall, it was really big, then we saw some really old tower, they were from like 10 centuries ago, the next things were like old houses and statues, it was really cool. One of the last things was a park, the park was pretty cool it had a wood carving and a pond there was a look out point where we could see the Mont Saint Michel and some of the countryside, it was really cool, after that we finished the rest and went back to the car then drove to our room and slept.
The end.
Andrew (10 years old)
On the 21st we got a taxi to a car rental place to pick up the car we rented. Then we drove for about five hours to Beauvoir with a lunch break in the middle. When we got there, we set up and then went for a walk because it was la fete de la musique (a music day in France). We saw some kids and some adults singing and playing music. I had a good night. It was a bit loud but other than that it was cool.
On the 22nd we visited the Mont Saint Michel. It is a big town on an island. Now I am going to tell you some stuff about it. The building on top of the rock is called an abbey or a church. More than 3 million people visit it every year. Mont Saint Michel used to be connected to the mainland by a path that was covered by water at high tide. This connection changed over time. In 1879, this tidal path changed into a raised, dry causeway. The idea of building Mont Saint Michel came from a dream. A bishop had a dream of an archangel telling him to build something on the rock. Some parts of Mont Saint Michel was also a prison. The abbey’s purpose underwent a change during the French revolution in the 18th century, when there were hardly any monks left. The abbey stored high profile political prisoners of the revolution. In 1863 the prison closed.
On the day, it was hot. We walked a lot, and it was tiring. I knew I was going to be hurting the next day, and I was right. It was a long day. To be honest with you, I thought I was going to die up there. I liked walking through the streets and smelling all the good smells. I had a good day. Then we went to a museum. Well, we went to four museums. They were small but cool. The first museum we went to was the maritime museum. The second museum we went to was the sound and light show. The third museum we went to was the historical home of Bertrand du Guesclin. The fourth museum we went to was the historical museum. Then we walked around on the island a little. We watched the tide come in and it was really fast. Then we walked back to our place which took forever. We stopped at a shop to get some stuff for breakfast. We got some madeleines as well. Madeleines are like mini cakes. They tasted buttery, sweet and crumbly. When you stuff the whole thing in your mouth it is hard to chew, but when you take bites it easy. If I start, I can’t stop. I love them.
On the 23rd we did blog and shopping. Boring.
On the 24th we went to Avranches. It was a town close to the town we were in, so we got a map, and we were off. Me and Andrew aren’t very good at reading maps, so we were trying to learn. I am going to list some of things we saw. The first thing we saw was a statue of an army general. Then the city hall. Some old towers and some wooden book sculptures. Some houses made partly by wood. The next thing we saw was some old houses and some churches. We saw a few statues to remember the people who died in war. Then there was the art gallery. Oh yeah, and the garden with fruit trees and the dungeon. Then there was the donation statue. There were two people that were standing next to each other, and they had a hole in their chest that a ball would go through. The wind would push the ball and make it go through the holes, so it looked like they were donating. After that we went to the museum of manuscripts. It was a big museum of things that the monks used. Lots of tools. We saw some of the stuff that they used to make colours. The things I can remember of the colours was egg yolk and flour. Then we went to the garden. At first, we were not so good at reading maps but now we are ok.
Thanks for reading.
Emma (almost 9 years old)Читать далее
Rennes, France by Kev and Mel
25–29 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
Hello from Bretagne in France.
My family and friends live all over France, so when we come here, we have to do a little tour de France to see everyone! We are in Rennes to see my niece Manon and her boyfriend Nathan.
We arrived in Rennes on the 25th of June. The flat we rented could be great, but the cleaning is really horrible, which make the stay not as fun. Anyway! We settled and Manon and Nathan came to say hello before they had to go to work. It is always super nice to see family after so long!
We spent the afternoon at the place as Kev was feeling sick and tired. Kids did some schoolwork and I did some blogging and sorting through pictures while Kev slept.
The next day, we visited Rennes with Manon and Nathan. Rennes is in Brittany in the northwestern of France. There are around 770 000 inhabitant in the metropolitan area (similar to Townsville where we live). The history of the city is over 2000 year old, as the city started as a small Gallic town named Condate.
We walked around the city taking on the sight of the old houses and churches, which seems to be at every corners of every streets! There are several beautiful churches and cathedrals with amazing stain glass windows, beautiful ceilings and amazing painting and decoration. I am not religious but I love places of worship: I am glad that we get to see during this trip a lot of different ones, from Buddhist temples to mosque, churches, Jain temple and other. It is always interesting to see the difference and similitude between them.
We were very lucky to hear some pipe organ being played, well actually tuned. Andrew did some research about how they tuned those massive pipes, so you can go on his blog to read about it.
We went to a restaurant to eat galette, which is a savoury crepe and is one of the typical food from Bretagne. They are delicious!!! I forgot how much I love French food. Each region has its speciality, and they are all so good! We spend the afternoon at a museum which had an exhibition about the brain and one about Leonardo Da Vinci. We did the brain first and it was really well done: everything was interactive and explained different functions of the brain and its anatomy. We learnt a lot and we had fun doing it. It was great. Then we went to the Leonardo Da Vinci one: It was interesting, but we already did a few exhibitions about him and I don’t think I learnt too much more. One thing I learnt was that despite people thinking that Leonardo was writing for left to right and inverse (you need a mirror to read his writing) as a code, they now think that he simply could not write the “regular” way as he did not learn it at school (he didn’t go to school). Evidence of that, is when he signed his name writing left to right, his handwriting was a lot more hesitant, as it was harder for him. We enjoyed both exhibition, but the brain one was definitely better.
We finish that day at Manon and Nathan’s place, chatting while the kids read Nathan’s collection of Manga.
Our next day was spent visit Dinan, then Saint Malo which are two towns in Bretagne along the coast. They are both medieval cities. Manon and Nathan were great guides, and we enjoyed walking in the small and narrow streets, looking at houses and churches who have been around for centuries, walking on the ramparts which used to protect the town, eating some delicious Kouign-amann (a typical patisserie from Bretagne, made of salted butter, flour and sugar. The ingredients are simple, but the making of the pastry is more complicated: it makes a delicious snack with melted butter and sugar inside and caramelised sugar on the outside)
We ended up putting our feet in the water and looking for tiny crabs. It was a very nice day. We also visited a pirate ship! It was fun, until I received a phone call from the place we booked for our next stay telling me that the hot water system stopped working, so they couldn’t rent us the place!! Luckily in 10 minutes I managed to find another place, around the same price and we got refunded more than what we paid for the first place originally, so nothing bad!
We spent the evening at our place, chatting and playing board games.
It is in those moments that I realise how much I miss my family. I wish I could have those get together more often…
Our last day in Rennes, we had a picnic with Manon, Nathan and one of their friends called Manon as well. We went to a big park called Thabor Park. This is very lovely, well-maintained park where a lot of people were enjoying the very warm weather. The kids had a great time walking around by themselves as we let them discover the p
ark just the two of them (the rule was to stay together at all times). They are getting more confident and are very happy to roam free of adults watching them! We spent a couple of hours walking around in the shades of the trees as the weather was very warm, looking at the aviary and the little ponds all around the park. The heat finally got the better of us and we stopped for a couple of cold drinks in the little bar inside the park.
We had to have another typical dinner for the area: Moules-frites!!! Mussels and chips. This is one of my favourite meals. Andrew and Emma tasted it: Andrew didn’t like it too much and Emma loved it!!! She finished my plate!
On the 29th, we packed up again and left with Manon and Nathan to have a wonderful lunch at Nathan’s parents. They got us ‘un plateau de fruits de mer’, sea food platter: several spider crabs, prawns, snails, oysters… so many good stuffs!!! We had another great day, chatting with friends and just enjoying life! The kids had fun playing with the family dog; a puppy named Fibi (we cannot agree on the spelling!).
Then we got to our next place in Saint-Quay-Portrieux, another little town located in the north of Bretagne on the coast.
That is where I leave you for this blog.
See you soon
Mel
26.6.2025. I'm still crook, ribs are sore from sneezing. Mel had a rough night too, apparently I snored all night. We met up with Manon and Nathan again, and had a tour around Renne. Checked out some old buildings, churches and walked the streets. We stopped and had galette for lunch. Sorta like savoury crepes, with smoked sausage, cheese and sauce. Enjoyed with a glass of local cidre, and another local beer. Next stop was a science museum, featuring some of Leonardo DaVinci’s inventions. There were also some brain activities. Given my current state of health, I struggled with these. That's my excuse anyway. After the museum, we went to Manon and Nathan’s apartment for an evening of bread and cheese.
27.6.2025. We got picked up by Manon and Nathan this morning. We're off to Dinan, where we walked and talked and checked out more old churches. We heard some pipe organs being played today. They can get such different tones from the various sized pipes. After that we drove to St Malo, a city by the sea. We had a walk around some old fort walls, and looked out over a pool built into the shore. Looks to me that when the tide is right in, the pool goes completely under. We had a walk on the beach, through the shallows, water is bloody cold. Checked out small fish and crabs as we climbed over rocks and waded through pools. We headed back to Renne, with a stop to pick up food for tonight. Back at our apartment, Manon and Nathan's friend, also Manon, joined us. I made pasta and steak haché for everyone and some games were played. One was a game where you had to try and cheat, Mel was surprisingly good at this game.
28.6.2025. Today's plan is to head over to a park in Renne. But first, homework. Kids love it and are overjoyed to participate. We got picked up by Manon and Manon and Nathan again, and driven to Thabor park. We had lunch, baguette sandwiches, which we made. Then the kids were given free reign to explore while some games were played. I had a Nanna nap, laying on the grass with my hat over my face. Later we explored the park a bit more. Found an aviary with budgies and various other birds. Walked past countless rows of plants and flowers. We stopped at a pond and the French people talked. The kids checked out the fish then decided to make boats. A task they both took too enthusiastically. They both tried different methods and designs. Just before we left Andrew came up with a pretty decent concept. He used grass to tie two pine cones together, and had a stick in-between with a leaf. It worked pretty well. Emma was still working while we were on our way out. We stopped at a brasserie in the park on the way out and grabbed a drink. The kids had ice-cream, then decided to work on boats some more. They rummaged through grass and leaves looking for who knows what exactly. We left the park, stopped at a church to listen to the bells. Then headed off to a restaurant for moules frites. Mussels and fries for the non French. We got dropped back and at our apartment, brushed teeth and went to bed.
29.6.2025. We're off again today, this time to Saint Quay. We followed Manon and Nathan to his parents house for lunch, which was on the way. We had drinks and the kids played with their dog, a lot. We were treated to a really nice seafood platter. Spider crab, prawns, snails and oysters. A really nice gaspatio soup also, was delicious. We left and made the last bit of the drive to Saint Quay, where we met with Manon’s mum and grandmother. More drinks and more delicious food, too much for me. I was full as a goog, pretty pissed and half falling asleep. We made it back to our apartment, and I crashed.
KevЧитать далее
Rennes, France by the kids
25–29 июн. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
On the 25th we drove to Rennes (pronounced: r-e-n), it is a bigger city than the place we were before. When we got to the hotel it looked pretty nice, the person gave us the keys and then left, there was a balcony but the chairs on it were broken, the table was big, but the place mats were dirty and then mum looked into the microwave. The was like two-day old food in there that was half covered in bugs, also the freezer was so cold that it froze the door shut. Other than that there was nothing else wrong with the flat, we had some people that were going to come over, it was Manon and Nathon (pronounced: ma-no, and na-ton). Mum and dad talked to them for a while, while me and Emma played, we played and talked and played and talked, when they left, we stayed at the hotel and did some blog. Then we went to sleep in a bed in France in this world in space.
On the 26th we were just walking around visiting different places in Rennes, what I liked was all the buildings, they were pretty old, and they still had wood in them. We kept walking looking at things, we saw a few churches, one of them was really big and there was lots of cool paintings, we also heard a pipe organ, it was beautiful. We went to a museum, there were two parts of the museum we were going to see, a bit on brain and some information about Leonardo da Vinci, we went to the brain one first. The brain one had lots of activities that were teaching stuff about the brain, I did all the activities, but my favourite one was where they would show you a video of two groups of clowns and tell you to see how many times one group pasted the ball and then they would tell you the answer at the end of the video and then ask you if you saw the white cowboy. They would show you the video again and pause and show you the white cowboy, they walked out and stood right in the middle of the screen. It was teaching you how when your brain is focusing on something, it can’t focus on anything else: it is called delusional blindness (I think). After that we went to the Leonardo da Vinci part. There were some examples of his work, it was cool, there was even a fake Mona Lisa we looked at different things for a while, then we went to Manon and Nathans place. We had dinner there and we looked at some manga (Nathon has a big collection) after the we went home and to sleep and we slept, and we slept, and we slept.
On the 27th we drove to Dinan, it was like some old town from the 16th century, most of the buildings were from long ago, we wandered around looking at lots of the buildings. Some I didn’t want to live in because they were leaning to the side, and it looked like it could fall over any second. After that we looked at some churches and we heard them tuning a pipe organ, how do you do that, I will explain. A pipe organ needs tuning when it is affected by temperature changes, so a pipe organ might need to be tuned when seasons change or when the heat is turned on in the winter and when the air conditioning is turned on in the summer. The way to tune an organ is by tapping up or down on the metal collar at the top of a pipe to raise or lower the pitch. After that we went to Saint-Malo, it’s a town very close to the sea, we were going to see a fort thing over there, when we got there we saw a huge wall so decided to walk on it, we saw a big area of beach with a big natural pool in the middle after walking around the wall we went over to the pool, there were some rocks on the other side of it and there weren’t many people there so me and dad went there, we saw some fish and then we saw a crab, we saw lots of seaweed. After that we went home and Manon’s friend came over to and guess what their name is, Manon, we played some games (I played video games) and after that, we slept.
On the 28th we were doing blog and schoolwork in the morning and then after that we were going to go to Thabor Park (or to say it in French: le parc du Thabor), when we got to the park we set up a picnic and we had lunch. Then mum said me and Emma could wander around wherever we wanted, it was going to be fun, but then they said we had to stick together, disappointing. We walked around a bit just talking and then we sneakily climbed up a tree near the parents and watched them for a while then we came down watched then finish a game and then we went to a restaurant. The place made a lot of mussels or in French the people call them moules, they also made galette for the people who don’t want mussels, me and Emma had galette, but mum made us try a mussel each, it was disgusting, revolting, utterly sickening Emma somehow loved it. When we finished, we went home and slept.
On the 29th we packed up our stuff and we went to our cousin’s boyfriend parents house (they want to see us) when we got there, we saw they had a dog that me and Emma played with (I’m missing our dog back at home). We were going to have a sea food plater, which in French is called plateau du fruit de mer, which means plater of fruit of the sea. When it came out it was nice we ate a bit and then we went to the car and kept driving to where we were going, which was Saint Quay. When we got there we went to our room put all our stuff in a pile and then went to Manues house (Manue is another person in our family) we had dinner there and then we went back to the place and slept.
The end
Andrew (10 years old)
Hello again friends. I am excited to share this blog with you. One thing I would like to tell you before you read this blog. On all the days we are going to be with Manon and Nathan.
On the 25th we drove to Rennes which was about 1 hour away from where we were. To keep myself busy, I thought of good ways to get money for a horse and played with Andrew. Manon and Nathan came over to say hello. We stayed in the apartment that day since dad was sick.
On the 26th we visited Rennes and walk around the city. We had galette for lunch. Galette is a savory crepe. I didn’t like mine that much. After that we went to a museum. The museum was about brains, and Leonardo Davinci. We first did the brain one. It had lots of stuff that made your brain work. There were memory games, stuff that explained emotions, movement. There were some things that showed that your eyes always switch to different things to see if your safe or in danger. In the Leonardo Davinci part, it was some of his inventions. There was also a presentation. If you want more information on the presentation, read mums blog because they were speaking in French, so I had no clue what it was about. Then we had dinner at Manon and Nathan place. I read lots of manga because Nathan had lots. Well, I didn’t read them I just looked at the pictures because they were in French. We got back late so we went straight to bed. Night night.
On the 27th we went to Dinan with Manon and Nathan. We saw some old church’s that looked like some parts were made in roman time and some were made in gothic time. In one of the church’s, we heard someone playing a pipe organ. I loved the sound of the pipe organ. Then we went to Saint-Malo. We walked on the rampart which is the long wall around the city. Then we went to walk on the beach. Manon and I found some little crabs that we held. Then we visited a boat. Me and Andrew pretended to fight on the boat. Then we went back to our place. Manon had a friend that came over to. guess what, her name was, Manon to. we played a few games and chatted then went to sleepy sleep. Good night.
On the 28th we did schoolwork. In the afternoon we went to a park. we had a picknick and then me and Andrew walked around. Mum and dad let us wander around as long as we stayed together. we ventured deep into the park and then decided to go back and spy on mum and dad. It was hot so we had a drink at a restaurant. Mum and dad got mussels, and it turns out I love them. We got back late so we went straight to bed.
On the 29th we drove to Nathans parents’ house for lunch. We had a sea food platter for lunch. I ate spider crab, shrimp and little snails. It was nice but if I ate to much of one thing at a time, it started to taste weird. Then we kept going to Saint Quay.
Good job. You finished the blog. Please leave a review on the blog. Bye.
Emma (Soon to be 9 years old)Читать далее
Saint-Quay-Portrieux, France
29 июн.–2 июл. 2025, Франция ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
Hello everyone,
We are in Saint Quay Portrieux, a small town in Bretagne in France. Those few days we spent there were mainly family moments as it is where my sister-in-law (more my sister than anything else) Manue and her mum, Marie Claude, lives. Manon and Nathan (my niece and her boyfriend) were also there, then my dad and his girlfriend Laurence, came for a couple of days too.
We arrived on Sunday the 29th of June and had dinner at Manue and Marie Claude’s place. I love French dinner: starter, main, cheese and deserts! Not just a main! With wine and apéro first of course! As regular, a lot of catching up to do, a lot of chatting, remembering, asking news of people not seen for a while, a lot of laughing: just some time with my loved ones.
On Monday the 30th, we went to get some shoes. As the kids lost their shoes to jackal back in Namibia, they need closed in shoes, Andrew cheap thongs from India are dying and I need thongs as mine broke down a while back. So off to the shop we go! Once we all got what we needed, we went to visite a small animal farm for the kids on the way to Binic, another small town on the coastline. We walked around the town for a while, then ended up at the beach, where the kids and Manon and Nathan had a swim and a play in the sand! On the way back, we saw a lonely seal in the port sunning itself. We finish the day at Manue’s where my dad and Laurence meet us. We are getting into the habit of going to bed latter and latter! The average lately is probably around 11.30pm and the kids are getting tired (us too), but it is hard to leave early when it is family time and I’m not sure when we will be back in France next.
Anyway, the next day was the 1st of July and it was my dad’s birthday. The last time, I was with him for his birthday was for his 60th which were a while back! So it is good to be with him.
We did a bit of schoolwork in the morning, then headed to Manue’s again for the birthday lunch. We had a lot of food and drinks and laugh and good time. We took a little walk in Saint Quay after lunch where the kids went on a couple of carousel rides, paid by Papy Jean. Those kids have been incredibly spoiled since we are in France with lollies and ice creams and more! They really feel the love and we are very grateful for that.
After our walk, it was back to the table for ‘l’apero’ and another big dinner! Yes we do that a lot in France!!!
The next day was packing up and saying goodbye again. It is always hard as I don’t know when the next time I’ll see my family. Big hugs and a few tears and we were on our way for our next stop in France to see one of my best friends near Tours.
See you there.
Mel
30.6.2025. Andrew needs shoes. The pair of sandal things we bought in India, that already blew out and got glued up, blew out again. I blame the boy and his reckless running around shenanigans, not dodgy Indian merchandise. Manon and Nathan took us to a “cheap” clothing outlet. We found some hopefully better sandal things for Andrew, they look almost the same as the last pair. While we were there we bought him another pair of shoes too, since 50% of his last pair got donated to a hungry jackal. Oh yeah Emma doesn't have shoes either, jackals again. Another new pair. Mel has only had their shoes since a thong blowout in Africa, well, while we're here. Maybe this will be the last time we buy shoes on this trip, maybe not. Maybe it will be my turn next. After that we grabbed some baguette sandwiches and went to a farm/park. We saw a few animals, had a walk, ate our sandwiches and played on some playground equipment. Then we set off for Binic, a small town not far from St Quay. We walked along the beach, saw lots of big mullet swimming in the marina and the kids, Manon and Nathan went for a swim. Not me, too bloody cold. The kids played for ages and didn't want to stop when we had to leave. Back to Manue’s where we met with Pappy Jean and Laurence. Apéro started, which means drinks and snacks to the less cultured. A small whisky was had, along with chips and biscuits. I have learnt not to hit the chips too hard, even though it's delicious and you're probably hungry. Just remember there is lots more to come. We then switched to wine for the main course, shredded duck on a pastry thing, covered in mashed potatoes. Oh man was that good. Next is cheese, followed by desert. Once again, full as a goog. After a few beers and a fair bit of chatting, we said our goodbyes and headed back for sleep.
1.7.2025. Pappy Jean’s birthday! We started slow today, some breakfast and blogging before heading back to Manue's for lunch. We wished Jean a happy birthday and the kids gave him a drawing they had both done. We slipped into apéro, then onto lunch. Followed by cake for the birthday boy! Instead of putting 76 candles on a cake there were just a few which all the kids helped blow out. Add two big flame/sparkler things and it was quite spectacular. After dessert, some of us went for a walk. We found a carousel, Jean bought the kids a few rides. We grabbed a few postcards while the kids went round and round. Jean and Laurence went back, the rest of us had more of a walk along the St Quay coast. Quite a few lighthouses as there are lots of rocks in the ocean. We wandered back to Manue's and prepared for dinner. We're heading to our next stop tomorrow so after dinner we said our goodbyes, which was a bit sad as all these people are so lovely. I know Mel misses France and family. I know they only chose to stay in Australia because of me. I can't help feeling some guilt (a lot at times) that I am keeping them from all this. If only we won the lotto and could do 50/50 between the two countries. For that i'd have to play the lotto of course. Anyway, for the moment we have a gap year to finish. Off to bed before the next part of our trip.
2.7.2025. Today's drive takes us past Tours, to a small town near that called St Aignan, where a friend of Mel's lives. We got to Sophia's a bit after lunch. Sophia went to business school with Mel and everytime we are in France they catch up. As with all the people I know in France she is really nice and very accommodating. We have a few days here with Sophia and her daughter, Clara. Clara is a bit older than our kids but got along with them really well. They have a strange dog, who will come look for a pat, then growl at you. As always, we ate and talked and stayed up late. Stuff to do tomorrow so off to bed.
Kev
On the 30th we went to a little farm where there were some animals It was cool, there was one ginormous pig it could have been over 100 kilos, we kept going and then we saw rabbits the biggest one was 6 kilos, we saw a bunch of other animals, then we went back to the car and drove to Binic. When we got there, we went to the port and then to the beach we swam a bit, and then we dug a couple holes after that we were walking back and we saw a seal, it was cool. After that went back to Manues house to have some dinner and then we went to sleep.
On the 1st we started our day doing blog, at lunch we went over to Manues place and we had lunch, these are the stages of a French meal, drinks, starter, main meal, cheese then desert. It was also papy jeans birthday, me and Emma had made some drawings for him (I didn’t know what else to give him). We stayed there all day just chatting and talking, me and Emma played/wrestled. When it got late, we finally went home and slept.
On the 2nd we drove to Sophia place, Sophia is one of mum’s really good friend, Sophia’s house was in Saint Aignan we were going to stay with them for a bit. When we got there, mum and Sophia chatted a lot, while me and Emma went in the pool with Sophia’s child Clara. There was a water gun and I kept shotting Emma, after that we had dinner and went to sleep.
Andrew (10 years old)
Hi. Welcome back. This blog is about Saint Quay.
On the 29th we had booked an apartment, but they said they had cancelled our booking, so mum had to book another one last minute. We set up. And then went to Manue’s place for dinner. We had snacks, then the starter, then the main, then the cheese platter and then desert. I felt like I was going to explode. Every time we went there, I ate too much.
On the 30th we bought new shoes. Then we went to visit a farm. We saw a pig, some rabbits, a few donkeys and some sheep. I like seeing the animals roaming around in their paddock. We ate some sandwiches for lunch and then we went to Binic and played on the beach. Me and Andrew got seaweed and made a collection of it. after that we went back to Manue’s place for dinner, and I stuffed myself again. It was pappy jean’s birthday the next day, so me and Andrew made drawings for him. We got back way past our bedtime. Our heads hit the pillows and then all could hear are snores.
Today is a big day, its pappy jeans birthday!!! On the 1st we did blog in the morning, lunch at Manue’s place. More food. Me and Andrew gave him our drawings. We had a little walk around. Then we did a carousel. I was on a horse and Andrew was in a hot air balloon. We had dinner at Manue’s place. Oh my gosh so much bloody food.
On the 2nd we drove to Sophia’s place.
Please leave a comment and tell us what you thought of this blog.
Emma (8, almost 9 years old)Читать далее
