Last Saturday was pretty awesome, what with Jessica and myself spending literally the whole day together, followed by an evening visit that saw Retha and Miguel (finally back from their teaching stint in Borneo) join us for homemade hamburgers and chips with a movie (This is 40 – which was actually pretty funny, even if it didn’t really go anywhere), the night being capped off with some fun FIFA battles between Miguel and myself that went on well into the early hours of Sunday morning, much to the detriment of poor Retha who couldn’t go to sleep thanks to our incessant cheering!
After a leisurely breakfast at the Garden Kitchen and saying goodbye to our friends, Chantelle, Jess and I took a snap decision to head out to the Eagle Encounters bird sanctuary at Spier (the weather was too poor to go for first choice World of Birds in Hout Bay), a tourist spot where believe it or not, neither of us had actually been to before!
Although it’s sad to see all the quite magnificent birds of prey cooped up (or in this case, tethered up), the sanctuary really does some incredible work, and all in all it really was amazing to see some of these majestic birds from so close up. We enjoyed an informative show (where Jessica completely surprised us by demanding that the owl come sit on her hand as well), and a demonstration or two (the secretary bird’s incredible kick accuracy is certainly something to behold, never mind the bounding porcupine who loves to play run), and by the time the rain finally decided to show up, we were quite happy with what we had seen on the day.
Definitely a sight worth visiting then in other words (though only if you pay that little extra to gain access to the shows), especially if you haven’t seen some of the bigger eagles in person ever before!
