Philippines Holiday

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Day 7

After Breakfast, we drove by car to Tagatay. Tagaytay is 56km south of Manila & is a spectacular place to view the Taal Volcano.
When we arrived in Tagatay, we drove to a property where a friend of our's, Pat & family were staying & also met up with Eleanor & her mum (who had also come up from Manila for the day).




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After morning Tea, we left to go down the winding road, to the town of Talisay (where the boats depart to go over to the volcano). We stopped half-way down to get our first view of the volcanoes. The volcano pictured, far right is dormant, but others are still active.







We also had the chance to visit a Piggery, after we arrived at Talisay. A former Aussie office-mate of Pat's, owns the property. The pig pen's were quite smelly !







After seeing the pigs, we drove back to the water, where we would take boats to the island to see the volcano. We needed 2 boats to go over to the island - one for Peter & the boys, the other boat was for the adults & Sarah. The boys boat started first, but the Adult boat, which left much later, made it over to the island first !













Once on the island, you travel up to the lookout by small horse. The poor horse (mine was called Patricia), was really bushed by the time we reached the lookout.







Some of our party thought they would walk to the crater, but eventually the going was too hard & so everyone went horseback. The horses were all led by guides. At the lookout there were people selling drinks & coconuts. The view of the lake in the crater was very good. You could see steam rising from the lake in some parts







We took some Group Photographs at the lookout & then it was back on the horses to meet back with the boats (around 35 minutes). On our way back to the mainland, the sea was a bit choppy & it started to rain-most of us were soaked by the time we reached shore.







After returning to our vehicles, we drove to our Hotel to freshen up. The Hotel had a nice Waterfall & Pool. Ronald had to ask one of the staff to activate the waterfall (so we could take pictures). We also saw an area which looked like it might be used as an outdoor theatre. Later in the evening we returned to Pat's sister's house for dinner.

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