21 August 2011

Bird park album

A mini album showing the photos from the trip that Alex, Caitie and I took to the Bird Park in KL a few weeks ago.  Lesson learnt here - don't choose something really complicated or time-consuming for a mini album, you may well regret it!  All the stamping, together with cutting and inking every single leaf, took somewhat longer than anticipated!  Thanks for looking :-)










16 August 2011

Pangkor Laut - a taste of paradise

Last week was spent on Pangkor Laut, a gorgeous, private island just off the western coast of Malaysia.  The tag line is "one island, one resort", which sums it up very well.  There are villas dotted around the island, some over the sea on stilts, a few by the beach, and some up the hillside.  There are also a few private "estates", ie extra-posh, extra-large villas with their own staff, grounds, pool, etc, where the rich and famous stay.  Pavarotti apparently liked it there, as did Joan Collins and Nick Faldo.

We were in a beach villa, with a beautiful view over towards the main island of Pangkor.  We spent our time just chilling out - swimming, lazing around, reading, eating - you get the idea.  Alex and Will also exercised in the resort's gym and squash and tennis courts.

There was only one beach suitable for swimming at (the others had nasty things in the water like spiky sea urchins!) - it is, however, rated one of the top ten beaches in the world.  Look at this photo (it's not been touched up at all!), and you'll see why:


It really was a taste of paradise, and somewhere we would never have seen if we hadn't moved here.


3 August 2011

Birds, birds and more birds!

As we walked through the gate into KL Bird Park, our immediate action was "wow" - so many birds, brightly coloured with shimmering hues of blues, greens, yellows, reds - it was amazing.

The park is in Lake Gardens, a big "green lung" in KL city centre.  Apparently it is the world's largest free-flight walk in aviary.  We arrived there fairly early on a Saturday morning.  The rain was just stopping, and it was a bit over-cast - but the joy of this is that it was also relatively quiet, not many other visitors.

We ooo'ed and aaah'ed over a variety of birds, Caitie and I taking photos right, left and centre.  We loved the photo shoot booth, packed with all sorts of exotic birds, and couldn't resist the temptation to have our photo taken with them.


We fed some ostriches and emus - fortunately they were behind a big fence.  I say fortunately as they were really quite big, not at all shy, and VERY greedy!  They snatched the leaves from our hands, and were soon back for more.

Then we spotted some chicks and ducklings in the park's nursery - cue lots and lots of cooing from Caitie!



Caitie also got to feed some Lorys, very brightly coloured little birds who were quite happy to use her hands as a perch while they drank milk from the tiny cup she was holding.



Not all of them were interested in food though, some just wanted somewhere comfy to rest...


As you can see, we had a great time filled with some memorable experiences, I'm sure we'll return at some point.  I'll leave you with a fantastic photo that Caitie took.