On the road again... day 2

I woke up to a bright sunshine and birds chirping in the bushes. Damn it, Heikki, close the curtains, I need more sleep!

Heikki and Matias went for an early morning walk and spotted several birds they'd never seen before. Heikki had his bird book with him so they could identify the birds later from photos.

We had a full breakfast at the hotel and started driving towards the east again, this time all of us in one car. We saw some beautiful scenery: well kept towns with cute houses, lots of water and mountains. Hille and I had gone through a pile of brochures the night before, and we'd all decided on going to an elephant sanctuary. There were a lot of things we would have liked to do, like going for walks in the Nature reserves, going for safaris, going swimming in the Indian Ocean etc. but we only had time to do a couple of things. We also had to take into consideration the age span of the group.

Going to see the elephants turned out to be an excellent choice. The Elephant Sanctuary was a very well kept place and the tour we took was very informative. Everyone got a chance to walk together with the elephants, with a tusk in one hand. We all also got to feed them and to stroke them. Afterwards, we learned about the elephants' anatomy, their habits and some facts about the sanctuary. India would have loved to go for a ride, but unfortunately she was too young (you needed to be 8).

Our next stop was a wolf sanctuary, which we had spotted on the way to the Elephant place. India has been a wolf-enthusiast for a long time, and we wanted her to see a wolf in real life. She has kind of a love/fear relationship with wolves. When she plays, she often tells us there are wolves around. She also likes to look at them in books. Joona was keen on seeing the wolfs, too, and all the kids enjoyed the experience. We got some animal feed for them, and they all got to feed some farm animals. Matias had fun with some runaway piglets.

They farm oysters in Knysna. Heikki went to get a half a dozen from a take-a-way. Joona, feeling brave, said he wanted to taste one. I parked the car on the Main Road, so Heikki and Joona could have their mini-feast on the pavement next to the car. Joona put the oyster in his mouth and we cheered him on. He did manage to eat a part of the oyster, but was then sick in a bin. Nevertheless, we all thought he did extremely well.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was past six, and it got dark quickly. We watched Hatari (a John Wayne film) on DVD and went to bed.