Black Rock River Lodge

We really need to come back to this place. The staff were really happy, the lodge is completely self sustainable. It is not connected to the grid or water, sewerage or garbage collection.
There is a huge vegetable garden which grows vegetables for the dining room. Chickens are raised for both meat and eggs. There are goats. The lodge grows sugar cane, fruit and cacoa. Barter and trade is done with local farmers or purchsed from the farmers' market not far away. What is not eaten goes to feed the animals, the birds and the compost. All the water comes from a nearby spring and is filtered for drinking - no plastic throw away water bottles here.
Kitchen appliances are run on gas. The electricity is generated by solar panels and water turbines. The lodge generates more power than it can use!
The swimming pool is not chlorinated. The water in the pool comes from the spring and flows through the pool continuously. No sunscreen or insect repellants are allowed in the water, so all guests must shower before using it. The water that flows out of the pool is filtered twice and constantly monitored before it is directed back into the river below.
The lodge has two sewerage treatment pits that use vegetation from the jungle to purify the water. These plants thrive in the mineral rich water and siphone at the contaminants from the water. The clean water is then drained into a pond. It was in this pd that I saw the very endangered red-eyed tree frog. This lodge has managed to have a colony of them that thrive here. Frogs can only live in pollution free areas, so this is indeed proof that their sewerage treatment plant really works.

I went on a guided night walk and look what we found.
In the morning we both went on a guided bird watching walk. We saw heaps of really special birds and a squirrel but my camera ran out of battery notlong after we started walking, so the rare birds we saw have not been recorded in photos.

There were so many choices of exciting activities at Black Rock River Lodge that unfortunately we did not have time for. We will have to come back!

Louis came to drive us to Birds Eye View in Crooked Tree, a three hour journey by car.