Plettenberg Bay- Birds of Eden and Robberg Nature Reserve

Two very different places but both were enjoyable to visit. (Thanks Charlie for the heads up.)

Birds of Eden is very close to Plettenberg Bay and is a huge netted aviary, (apparently the biggest in the world)containing a wide variety of birds. Normally these birds would be in different parts of the world from each other, but they seemed to get on ok and it was great fun spotting them. It’s very well run and the birds fly about as they would in the wild.

Being a complete bird nerd, S brought his binoculars and received many envious looks and muttered comments from other BNs, wishing they’d brought theirs. Most of the birds kept their distance from the humans so I was very surprised when one little parrot seemed to take a liking to me and hopped onto my shoulder!

Today we went to the Robberg Nature Reserve which is on our doorstep – just a 15 minute drive away. We completed the circular walk which circumnavigates the reserve. It was just over 9km but took 4.5 hours. We did saunter along at the start, but this is a substantial walk, which involved lots of ups and downs and climbing over boulders. I wore trainers but really hiking boots would have been better.

We had the most glorious day to do this walk. Full sunshine most of the time and not too hot but no need for any fleeces or suchlike. The best day since we’ve been here at Plett – the weather has been quite cool and cloudy.

The highlight of the day was spotting a whale.

We thought after Hermanus we’d seen all the whales we were going to see so it was a great treat seeing a whale just burst out of the sea!

Gruesomely, S also wanted to see a great white shark grab a seal ( lots of seals around and they really stink) but it wasn’t to be, thank goodness.

We had a bit of a race against time, or tide in this case, as the sea was coming in and we were a bit concerned about getting back to the car before the sea cut off our return journey.

All was fine though and once we got home the weather was warm enough for us to snooze and read by the pool.

Happy days.