Trip to Swaziland - Umdoni - November 2013

Christmas pressie

We had a quick weekend visit to Swaziland driving down on Friday afternoon.  We stayed Friday and Saturday night at a very nice bed and breakfast cottage called Umdoni on a pineapple plantation in the Malkerns valley, only 4 hours drive from Maputo. At the B and B we were looked after by a lovely Swazi lady called Buhle who cooked us breakfast on the Saturday and Sunday.  On the Saturday morning we did a little Christmas shopping at the local craft markets.  We managed to get a very tasteful carved wooden garden snail for one of my sisters and a life size metal crocodile and giraffe for my other sister and brother.  I am not quite sure how we are going to get them home on the plane.

Visit to Cape Town - October 2013

When Jane first suggested we have a holiday in Cape Town in South Africa I wasn't keen.  I had it in my head that Cape Town would just be a large city and that there were other more exotic places we could be exploring.  I was totally wrong.    Nestled in a scenic bay with the backdrop of table mountain, Cape Town is a a beautiful city with fabulous restaurants and lots of interesting things to do and see.  The countryside and coast around Cape Town in the Western Cape province has gorgeous scenery and places to explore including the surrounding wineland areas.

Whale watching - September 2013

An eco lodge, Dunes de Dovela, was running a whale watching weekend and this was something we had been wanting to do for a while.  The lodge is in an isolated spot and is only accessible by a four by four vehicle. It is about six hours drive from Maputo situated at the end of a 12.5 km track off the main road.   Even though we were staying in a tent rather than a chalet it was not cheap but we had heard good reports from a couple of people.  We were not disappointed.

Trip to Swaziland - August 2013

Swaziland Flag

In a change from our usual beach trips we went to stay in the Hlane National Park in Swaziland just under two hours drive from Maputo.  We stayed in Ndlovu camp in a quaint self catering round stone hut or rondavel.  Our hut was really close to a watering hole frequented by loads of Rhinos which were the size of small trucks.  

Trip to Tiree - June 2013

Back in June I needed to go back to Scotland to sort out the renting of our house.  We had not managed to arrange anything before we left for Mozambique and our neighbours Jay and Debs had kindly been been keeping an eye on it for us.  While back in Scotland I went with our friends Diana and Robert for a long week end to to the inner Hebridean island of Tiree.  It was a fantastic little trip.

Going to the dogs

Oi doog man - where's our dinner? 

I always thought that people tended to either like dogs or cats but not both. I thought I was definitely a cat person.  Cats are much more independent.  Dogs have masters, are people focused, and are clingy; cats have servants and only care about being fed, not who feeds them.  Cats are cool and have attitude.  However Jane found out about a local dog shelter that needed some help so we went to have a look.  I now go along a couple of  days a week, and I have become really quite fond of the wee Duggies.  The shelter for abandoned or stray Dogs (and cats) is run by an indomitable lady called Moira as part of the charity she co-founded, Mozambique Animal Protection Society or MAPS. MAPS facebook page

Trip to Vilankulo - September 2013

Continuing our progress up the coast of Mozambique our next visit was to Vilankulo just over 700 km away.  Vilankulo was by far the largest coastal town we had been too but the beach area is a very pleasant place to hang out for a few days with lots of good places to eat including the fabulously named Zombie cucumber and some nice beach bars. We stayed at the Casa Rex lodge.