We are back from our short road trip! Overall it is rather a great experience, no major hiccups or meltdown from meimei, a great adventure and we attained a handful of 'firsts' for this trip. First family road trip, first trip out for Zelyn, first time to the beach, first time sleeping by herself in playpen, first time having table food!
The intended time to set off from home at 9ish was delayed which is nothing unusual and rather a normal situation for us. Considering all are loaded into the car, children strapped up by 10am is not too bad either. Decide to travel via Tuas checkpoint which is more straight forward, fool-proof for us who is not at all familiar with JB routes. Traffic wasn't too bad at both checkpoints and we managed to clear Malaysia custom and stop over at the gas station for a pee break at 11am. Hit the highway, exit Senai and head up E22 which is a new route promising to shorten the journey to Desaru to estimated 45mins drive. Weather was good and the drive was quite pleasant with a wee bit of fuss from the pampered princess in her unfavourable car seat but it was brought down to a minimum with toys, snacks or anything else which can hold her attention.
Reached our destination at around 12.10pm, try our luck with early check-in. Fortunately we could as it's off peak for them. The children explored the whole room first thing they went in. We wasted no time to grab lunch at the hotel café since there is not much food choices in the area. Lunch was pretty much so-so and I had to feed the young lady some fish and chip as she rejected her Raffety food pouch. After lunch we had intended to let the children take a power nap before setting off to the fruit farm but judging from the energy level of both, we gave up trying after 15mins. Change of plan, decide to exhaust them with the fruit farm visit instead so probably they could have a good night sleep later. The drive to the fruit farm was quite easy peasy and a short one but alas the princess fall asleep in her throne! Enquire about the fruit farm tour but we decide to take a rain check since weather certainly do not look like it will hold.
Following a quick discussion and armed with a hand drawn map from the hotel, we chose to drive about 30km to the Ostrich farm in Sungei Renggit and opt for an early dinner thereafter. It poured buckets on the drive there and we were really glad we had not gone ahead with the fruit farm visit otherwise will be soaked through. I am seriously really pleased with ourselves when we managed to locate the Ostrich farm. The place looked like a small kampong and not a bit like a farm. This instance we decide to proceed with the visit despite the rain. Was shown ostrich egg both intact and cracked along with a day old chick (apparently just hatched in the morning) before visitors decide to purchase for entry into the farm.
It was really a good educational tour in the farm although it would have been much better if conducted in English instead of Chinese especially so for the hubby and Zethan. I had to briefly translate and explain to Zethan about some of the information on ostriches which would also means I am missing out on other info as shared by the guy. It was certainly no easy feat having to translate and simply the explanation to him.
In a nutshell, the basic of ostrich would be male ostrich have pink beak and legs with black feathers while female ostrich are grey in beak, legs and feathers. They have 2 layers of eyelids to keep out the sand, the inner eyelid is translucent and blink side to side. Ostrich take in small amount of sands and stones to aid in their digestion. Eggs of ostrich are very porous thus if they are left out in the rain, it will kill both the fertilised and unfertilised egg. All eggs will be incubated for 5 days before identifying if they are fertilised or not. Under a beam of light the yolk of the fertilised egg will remain to the side of the egg even with rotation of the egg. Another method of identification would be the presence of a small black dot which will be the placenta. They are able to lay eggs without mating, one every 3 days if I heard correctly after they matured at 2 years old.
After the tour in the farm, we are led out to the showroom where we were shown the many by products of ostrich be it feather, empty eggshells (for art & craft), shampoos, creams etc. We then took a break and decide to try out ostrich egg omelette which cost RM10. Apparently it is much healthier than chicken eggs and lower cholesterol though frankly even if they had present chicken eggs omelette as ostrich egg omelette, who would have known?!! Anyhow there are absolutely no difference in taste and both kids get to have their share too.
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