More birds!

Horse riding on Friday was really fun! We went on a trail through the sugar cane fields up to La Roche qui Pleure - the rock that cries - where I got to see the White-tailed Tropicbird, the National biord of Mauritius, which is soo pretty! It wasn't too hot either, so the trail was really enjoyable. Our instructor, a woman named Lindi, was really nice and a really good instructor, she explained everything really well, and we even got refreshments afterwards! I would definately recommend it to anyone that comes to Mauritius. Afterwards we went to La Vanille Crocodile Park which was really nice as well, and pretty cheap! All in all a good day!

Yesterday we went to visit Ile aux Aigrettes, an island off the East coast of Mauritus designated as a Nature Reserve and run by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. Cost us 800 Rupees each (about £16) for an hour and a half tour around the island. The tour was really good though, our guide knew alot about the island itself, how it was formed, the plant life, the animals and birds and about the people that live and work there. She showed us 3 birds that are only found in Mauritius - The Pink Pigeon, the Mauritius Fody and the Mauritius Olive White-eye (extremely rare even in Mauritius). So I have now seen 4 of the 8 birds endemic to Mauritius! The birds are all free to leave the island (i.e. are not in cages) but are encouraged to stay by the use of feeding stations. All the birds there have been bred in captivity to increase the population, as there are very few left in the wild and they are monitored everyday by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. All of the plants there are plants native to Mauritus, mostly Ebony forest, and the mammals on the island have been eradicated so there are no predators. Our tour guide gave me the email address of somebody that I can contact about volunteering there, which woulld be awesome! Spent the rest of the day at the house, as Tahnia has hurt her back and it's really painfull so we spent the rest of the day relaxing.

We had planned on visiting the Black River Gorges National Park today to see the rest of the endemic birds of Mauritius, but as Tahnia has hurt her back, we decided it would be best not to aggravate it further. Hopefully she will be well again soon and then we can go! So today we are taking it easy. Going into Mahebourg (pronounced my-boo) soon so we can send off our postcards (finally!) and buy presents for a few select people!

I have put quite a lot of photos on Facebook now (but not all of them as I have millions and the internet here is kinda slow) so if you want to see them, click on the link below. it's too much effort for me to put them on here as well!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=242816&id=517753245&l=73b4e26b41