Left the lovely Usumbaras after a short but nice stay that included breathtaking lookouts, chamelion encounters & colourful markets. We'll have to go back once the kids up to hiking as some gorgeous trails begging to be walked.

After a bumpy, dusty 6.5 hour drive we arrived at the beautiful coast. A challenge to find as hardly any signage & well meaning locals kept pointing us in the completely wrong direction! Our lack of Swahili & Aussie accents the problem (unless we were the day's entertainment!). An example of our directions: "Drive till you see 3 large boabab trees, continue past till you get to a hill, turn at the small village with the palm trees....." The sea breeze, hibiscus & palms soon made it all worth while.

We have a lovely rustic, thatched "banda" about 50m off the beach complete with a hammock & palm & frangipani filled garden. Ahhhhh!

The kids were in 7th heaven terrorising the sandcrabs, collecting shells & splashing in the rock pools. Beach not winning any prizes as a bit seaweedy & churned up but still nice. Watched the dhows sail past & had a mandatory swing in the hammock before tucking into 4 types of freshly caught fish for tea. Yum!