Up early and was picked up by the Seychelles tourisit board and taken to the other side of Praslin. We then hopped on a boat for a 15 minute boat trip to Cousin ... a nature reserve. Here I met up with Mary Ledlie - scientist and conservationist - who showed me round the island. It is filled with wonderful almost-extinct birds, lizards, giant tortoises ... and evil, cruel, cunning, diabolical, miserable, horrid, obnoxious, verminous mosquitoes - in their millions. Of course as the area is a sanctuary and there is no spraying, the mozzies breed in their gazillions and are only eaten by the birds. The problem is that they also eat visitors ... and Tim, James and myself were molested, attacked, bitten and gourged on by billions of hungry, blood-sucking, ugly mozzies. Ouch. By the way, Cousin Island is a MUST see here on Praslin ... mozzies or not ...
Anyway, Praslin is famous for the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Vallee de Mai. But the locals say that to see everything - Coco de Mer trees etc - but without the crowds and in a more intimate setting, head to Fond Ferdinand - which we did. I saw the male & female Coco de Mer trees and their male & female nuts ... it is Mother Nature's little joke ... how Tim giggled.
The rest of the day was spent nursing bites and sitting in my cool swimming pool.
SADLY, tomorrow evening we leave the Seychelles ... but still have one more day of work and fun ...
