A Pod of Hippos

Power was returned and we were able to use the wifi from a neighbouring B&B - but not for pictures.   We packed up and went off for our river cruise.  It was very interesting – loads of hippos and birds.  A group of hippos is, apparently, a ‘pod’ and we saw lots of pods.  They are such funny creatures – nothing eats them, they kill more people than any other creature but are vegetarian, and spend their days in the river, heading for the town at night to graze on the verges and drink from the swimming pools!  My blip has to be from one of these pods – one hippo giving us ‘the eye’!  I have to include the Giant Kingfisher as an extra – it is not actually a big bird just bigger than most kingfishers and it had just caught a crab for its lunch – I was on full zoom with the 500mm on a moving boat so quite pleased to capture this at all!

 

We then had a long journey to our overnight stop in Howick, en route to the Drakensburg Mountains. Our hotel is the Howick Falls Hotel and one of those places which has a long history – Cecil Rhodes and Mark Twain have both stayed here in the past -  but is a bit ‘tired’ and its wifi isn’t functioning this evening.  Apart from not being able to blip (again) we need to sort some accommodation for a couple of days’ time and could do with using the internet. 

We looked briefly at the falls and tomorrow hope to walk down to the bottom of them for some photos.  There is also a Boer war cemetery in the town worth a look; then off to the mountains!