Tags
Cattle egret, Egyptian goose, Glossy ibis, Little egret, Livingstone, millipede, Nile crocodile, purple gallinule, red-backed shrike, Safariwise, swamp hen, three-striped skink, Victoria Falls, whiskered tern, Zambezi River, Zambia
Our leaders had pity on us, the morning of this our last complete day. Breakfast was up to as late as 8.00, and there was no pre-breakfast walk.
On the way to breakfast:
I was the last to arrive at breakfast, at 7.30, and was greeted by Neil with ‘Good afternoon!’, to which I reacted with appropriate indignation.
We set off for the day’s activities at 9.00.
We drove through the town of Livingstone. Difficult to capture images describing the place.
Surprise, surprise, we arrived at a sewage works. I didn’t take many photos, except of terns in flight – most unsuccessfully.
African purple gallinule, aka swamp hen
We then undertook a long and bumpy journey.
We were aiming for a lunch place (a lodge of course) some miles down the Zambezi River from Victoria Falls, overlooking the gorge. Leader Neil was disappointed that we were not giving it more attention, but the fact is that it was much cooler in the shade, and, perhaps more significantly, most of us were deep into our phones and tablets, having access to wi-fi for the first time in 48 hours. Our super luxury lodge had been without the service since our arrival. Not their fault, but the local tower, or whatever-you-call-it, was out of action. As we were due to depart the following day, people hasd urgent and less urgent need of communication with the rest of the world.
That said, everyone did look at the gorge for a while at least.
I remarked to Neil that I was surprised how slow the water flow was, given the amount and speed of it over the Falls. ‘Or perhaps it’s a matter of scale?’, I asked. ‘It’s a matter of scale,’ he said. ‘Look at those kayaking.’ I hadn’t noticed the tiny little dots. They were moving, very fast, and were much further down than my brain had registered.
Having lunched and, er, used the facilities, (which were totally respectable)
we set off back to the Lodge for a siesta.
We decided to walk the kilometre plus to our lodgings, which, in addition to the steps, proved to include lots of ups and downs. With more luggage than the other two, I resolved there and then that I would return by the metro on Wednesday morning!
each with its own teensy private bathroom on the landing, 
we went out to find a meal, and chose the first open restaurant we could find having headed towards the centre of the city. This turned out to be a popular Chinese one, where we enjoyed a good meal. Or rather Teresa and I did, as Harvey was feeling under the weather, and not up to eating much, a state in which he sadly remained, though improving, for the rest of our short stay.
What fun the designers must have had in creating this, and converting the original building! All the transformational work had been done by local stone masons, though the stone they used came from Normandy, as we learnt in due course. (As the water in the pool was unheated, there was absolutely no question of my trying it, neither did the others.)
It being Monday, we could not, as we had hoped, go by boat to the 
The usual pattern: a there and back walk, botanists behind, better walkers in front, me taking pictures of flowers and views, and many walkers of many nationalities. Lots of up and down, but not as much as the day before.
Unfortunately I was beaten after an hour or so. By the wind. Not having had full sensation in my feet for a couple of years now, passing over a high and very exposed spot, unbalanced by camera and binoculars round my neck, and wearing a wide brimmed sunhat, I was actually terrified that I would be blown over by a gusts of the (pleasantly warm) wind onto the hard stony ground. Very reluctantly I had to turn back and reach a more sheltered spot, where I sat for a while. 
After a bit, I moved further towards the car park, and found an almost suitable boulder on which to sit. For a long while. I confess that I did get a little bored, but amused myself taking more photos.
And a video.
I could indeed identify people from our party. I assumed they were sitting to have their lunch (which I took to as a cue to have my own) but I learned later they had been birdwatching and had seen, among other things, canary and rock sparrow. Oh well, I had watched grasshoppers … 
and a rather elegant wooden tourist boat, the Bonita da Madeira, following the coastline of the bay. 
Together once more, we went back along the south coast towards Funchal, and stopped at Ponta da Garajau, 
for liquid refreshment and what was intended to be a further walk down a cliff path to find a particular plant. 
However, the authorities had roped it off as too dangerous. This did not stop our leader venturing just a few metres into it to collect this insect from a cactus. 
He then passed it to a volunteer who agreed to crush it in her palm. 
This was the cochineal insect, much prized as a very expensive trading item centuries ago, and which set me off singing to myself an extract from a madrigal by Thomas Weelkes (1575-1623), Thule, the period of cosmography. This includes the line, ‘The Andalusian merchant, that returns laden with cochineal and China dishes,…’.
We had been told that the last part, to the top of the Pico, was just 400 steps. The white splodge at the upper right of this picture is a refuge at the bottom of those last 400 steps. 
After quite a lot of walking I had admitted to myself that there was no way I was going to inflict that last stage on myself, and indeed that I would probably turn round well before it. In fact I did make it to the refuge, but once there was not in the least enticed by the thought of being able to see a very rare plant (viola paradoxa, a yellow violet, an oxymoron to me!) at the top, or by the encouragement of my companions to attempt it. 
I ate my lunch at this halt, 
pleased to find that it was not totally occupied by others already. Given that doing the walk were many people of many nationalities – German, then French, then Portuguese in my estimation far outnumbering British people – I was pleased to have a bench to myself.
to have a wander around the coastline, 
and to admire the geology. 
I hadn’t really twigged before that volcanic rock could be sedimentary, but of course these lines are formed by layer upon layer of volcanic ash and other spewings.
Indeed, on the previous occasion I had noticed that there were ‘levada’ walks from that place, known for its trout farms, and I was pleased to have the opportunity this time to follow them up. We did two, one before our picnic lunch and one after. The first 
took us to a viewpoint at Balcóes. I took all these following photos within ten minutes of each other and from the same spot!
I struck out on my own, as did most people, leaving the very keen botanists with Martin, along a broad levada walk, again from Ribeiro Frio. 
After a rest at out hotel, we walked down to town for a meal in one of the dozens of restaurants in the Rua de Santa Maria, where you take your liberty in your hands if you haven’t already a booking (we had) or at least a target firmly in mind!
Taking the quiet roads enabled me to see and stop at more wildflower-studded meadows, 
and pretty – if forlorn – houses. 
This part of France maintains many of the plane trees lining roads, originally designed to shade those walking or driving carts along them. (Other places blame them for car accidents and have ripped them out.) 
I had never before seen oaks serving the same purpose. 
Coffee time, and I stopped at a town called Villemur-sur-Tarn. No problem in parking here, though I didn’t go right into the centre, but stopped along an embankment of the Tarn. 
When I saw this as I walked into the centre, I did wonder if I should have left my phone number in the windscreen! 
It was reassuring shortly afterwards to find out that the last time that the flooding had come so high was in 1766. 
The more modern notice must have been for the underground car park I had passed.
But what’s happened to the celebrated French pavement café? I could find absolutely nowhere, inside or outside, to have a drink! Even the Café de l’Hôtel de Ville was empty, not just of people but of furniture! 
Fortunately I had water in the car.
I hadn’t seen many poppies, which like disturbed ground, at all, so was very pleased, when driving around a town with a huge gravel works, to see these on a recently constructed bank. 
From now on I was concentrating on getting to the car hire depot on time, and on finding fuel to be able to return the car with a full tank. At the airport it was with great satisfaction that I abandoned my poor, spoke-broken umbrella to a bin!
The first exhibits were of mineral specimens. Eat your heart out, crystal shops of Glastonbury – my reflection gives an idea of the size of these. 
The rest were of a more reasonable size. 
(I took many, many photos throughout the museum, and could have taken many more. In this post are just a small selection of those I did take.)
You could stand on a metal plate which shook you as you watched a video, presumably taken on a web-cam, of the effects on an earthquake in a real home. The gentleman reading his paper at the outset left the house after a longer period than I would have put up with. Perhaps he was accustomed to minor earthquakes, and thought there was nothing to worry about. His exit when it did come was very hasty!
Each of the dragons has a ball in its mouth. The first one to fall into a frog’s mouth during an earthquake indicates its direction.
A huge area was given over to the exhibition of creatures by their classes, and explanations. There was a risk that this could have been a rather old-fashioned display, rows of animals pinned up behind windows, but it was so well presented that it worked. 
I confess that I failed to notice the blue lines indicating relationships in this exhibit, until I saw the photo. 
But there were several images on the screen at the end of the window, this one comparing homo sapiens with a gorilla. 
Upstairs, the next room linked together the geology of the inanimate with the evolution of the animate, geological period by geological period, with illustrations of how the tectonic plates were located at any particular time. I was beginning to flag by now, especially as I had not yet had any lunch, so did not give this the time I would have liked. Here are just a few of the maps of how the earth’s plates were at the given time, and even fewer of the fossil exhibits.
The museum would need several visits to do it justice.
I just whizzed through the last room, illustrating how living creatures function. 
If ever I have to spend another wet day in Toulouse, I know where I shall head!
Then I turned to my book. That is, until I remembered that there was a good chance we might be flying over the Mojave Desert. We were, though only over the southern part, I later discovered.
What on earth are these incredibly bright lights, apparently within saucers?
Alien invaders?
When I got home I was able to discover that they had been part of the 
I started to wonder whether we might be going over Yellowstone in due course. The answer was no – the flight map showed we would be going too far south, over Utah and Colorado rather than over north-west Wyoming. I was riveted to the window. Was it possible that this was the Grand Canyon? If not, it’s amazing viewing even so.
(A check with my atlas once I was home confirmed that indeed this had been the Grand Canyon, and the Rockies in Colorado.) We were cruising at between 33,000 and 39,000 feet.
What an amazing end to an amazing fortnight!
When we were at the furthest extent of There, Jeremy had a call to say that the road to Cooke City was now clear, an hour earlier even than hoped. Great! We could continue on our way!
In the course of this time in the Mammoth area we said goodbye to our faithful snow coaches, and reverted to 
And then it became too dark to take any more photos.