March 7 - Richard's Bay, South Africa

Today is another fairly hot and humid day.  The tour drive took us north of Richards Bay near the water and through many eucalyptus plantations.  

Our tour today is a slightly different animal safari.  Instead of hitting the hot humid plains we took a bus ride to Lake St. Lucia where we boarded a boat for a cruise though the river. 

The quest is for hippopotami and we found lots. This area has the largest population of hippos in South Africa with something like 800.
 
There are three pods of hippos in the river and we saw a few (or many) from each pod.  They aren’t particularly easy to photograph as they are mostly below the surface.  But we got a few fairly good shots…

including a reasonable shot of a baby hippo.

The tour was billed as sightseeing for hippos and crocodiles.  We saw many hippos but only one fairly small Nile crocodile, right at the end of the cruise.

We also saw a few yellow weaver nests that are pretty distinctive.

There was no lunch on board the cruise boat so it was another late lunch (and more milkshakes). 

The entertainment tonight was clarinetist Kenny Martyn…a really great show.