Maltese Magic

A relatively busy week with lots of ice cream, at least daily, some ties twice in a day! A few awesome swimming spots identified and hours of swimming in the warm Mediterranean water ensued.   

We visited the Aquarium, and Maxine collected every shark fact she could find! Harriette wrote down all the fishes names to “google them” later :-) 

Day trip to the Capital Valetta, where we split up and some went to the Malta Experience to learn a bit more about the fascinating history of the Maltese Islands, some visited the Lascaris War rooms to delve into WWII. Did you know Malta has known 11 foreign rulers in the past 2 millennia? The people of Malta were awarded the George Cross for their bravery during the Axis siege in WWII. 

Friday night we went on a sunset boat cruise to watch the Scopoli’s Shearwater (the largest of 3 types of Shearwaters) birds rafting on the water prior to returning to their nests on the cliffs of Gozo. Rafting can be described as a congregation of large numbers of Shearwaters at sunset on the water after a days foraging. Under cover of the darkness of dusk they leave the water and fly to their burrows in the cliffs to take up their egg incubation shift.  

Fireworks display by San Sebastián Fireworks Factory in Qormi on Saturday evening - what a spectacular sight. Waited a while for them to start, and a very late night for the girls, but absolutely worth it! I have never seen stationary fireworks that are so full of movement, colour and beauty... would definitely recommend it.  

Maxine’s Entry

Uncle Rex took us swimming in a shallow pool.  Uncle Rex went into the open sea and got stung by a jelly fish.  Later I found a pretty shell. Soon I found a crab living in it (a hermit crab).  I was sad for it, so I put it back in the water.  Harriette found something.  “Octopus, Octopus” she shouted and it was a baby octopus.  I saw it too. It was cool!

We went to the aquarium, and we saw lots of fish, including red belled piranhas - they have glittery gold scales so that they can see each other in the murky water. My favourite fish was the common clown fish.  We went through the aquarium twice to look at all the fish.   

We went to get tickets to go to the fireworks, and went to a pink and blue tearoom.  It was lovely.  I ordered pink Lemonade and a slice of "Mama’s cake".  Harriette ordered pink lemonade too and a cookie.  We wandered around the tearoom, there was a cool play house. We watched the fireworks and they were loud. I enjoyed it except that they were noisy.

Harriette’s Entry

We did some (boring) work in the flat, until it was 3pm.  Then we walked slowly down to a lovely stony and rocky beach.  After that we went adventuring on the inflatable floating assault course.  We had to swim out to it. They were squishy, bouncy, soft, and yellow, green and blue. SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! It was super dooper fun.  3/4 of the way through I lost my goggles! :( Soon after, we went home. 

On Thursday we had to have a restless, horrid nap. :( Boo. At 6pm we walked down to the dock. There we had a drink and started our dinner whilst listening to a talk about Shearwater birds. After that, we boarded our boat and set off to the place.  When sunset rolled round we had an hour to look at the interesting Shearwater birds. We got home and went straight to bed. 

We went on a long long bus journey, got some dinner and found somewhere to eat. When we finished eating our tasty food, the fireworks started at 9 o’clock and ran at intervals all the way up to 11:15. BANG! BANG! POP! SIZZLE! CRACK! They exploded in colour and pattern.  Finally after doing a puzzle from when the other fireworks ended until 11:45 the big ones started.  Mama bought us some donuts and snappers.  WHIZZ! POP! SIZZLE! BANG! CRACK!  Bright colours exploded in front of us. There were many amazing displays but my favourite was the Catherine wheel. Then, we got back on the bus and went to sleep after midnight!!! It was our first time staying up so late.