Lake and mica and freshwater crayfish

Back in September we went to visit my family who live by Lake Kariba. 

My brother runs a harbour there.  We had a wonderful weekend camping on the banks of the lake.  The boys loved playing with their cousins and enjoying boat rides on my brother's boat. Leo especially loved the boat and wanted to go faster and faster.  He got to drive the boat which pleased him very much.

Sol was intrigued with the freshwater crayfish that fisherman catch in the lake. 

A brave naughty monkey slunk up to our camp and stole a bag of apples off a ledge near us but he grabbed the packet upside down and all but one of the apples fell out.  We retrieved those and the monkey clambered to a very high branch and sat happily munching on the apple!  Noah was so made with that monkey for taking his apples and was yelling and crying at the monkey.  He calmed down when he saw we collected most of the apples back!

Along the banks of the lake we discovered beautiful shiny, silvery mica depositis within the  rockface.  And even a little cave with walls of glittering mica! We collected a bagful to keep as treasure. 

When we got home we made mobiles with bamboo sticks, fishing twine and mica.  We've made five so far! The mica glitters and glimmers beautifully as it spins in the wind and catches the sun.

Noah also made a clay mica cave.

The boys also had a special time with their cousins collecting beautiful rocks along the shore and selecting the most beautiful of them all to display on their 'beauty rock'.  They all kept adding to the beauty rock the whole weekend.