nottoway plantation

Sunday 1st July 2018

Today we went and visit another plantation home,  this time called Nottoway. It was about a 1.5 hour drive so a little further away than Oak Alley. We planned to sleep in a bit and leave about 9.30am. We got there  parked up and paid for our visit.  The house tours were done by staff in period costume and were very informative and well knowledged about the house and plantation history.  Once we checked out the house we walked out the front,  crossed the road and walked over the levee to the Mississippi River.  There was very large paddle boat pulled up which had stopped to visit the house.  

We then headed back towards New Orleans stopping for some Wendy's on the way back.  Debby dropped us off at around 4 and was going to come back at 7pm for dinner. 

We went to the Howlin' Wolf Den for dinner which was pretty good.  It is a small bar in a real old red brick building that does some snack type foods and over 100 beers in bottles and cans and 25 on tap, most of them local. 

It was a really good night and a good time was had even though it rained on the 10 minute walk back. 

Tomorrow we head to the airport at 8am and fly to the big Apple! 

oak alley and airboats

Saturday 30th June 2018

Today we started out early,  Debby picked us up at 8.30am for an hour drive to Oak Alley plantation.  It was an amazing house with lots of history and the guided tour certainly filled in all the relevant details for us.  We stayed there until 12pm until we had to travel to the airboat place for the gator experience. We were on a small boat that took only up to 8 people.  It went for 2 hours and was so much fun.  We saw quite a few aligators, one of which almost come up on the boat.  It was so much fun flying around the swamp in this v8 airboat.  After that we traveled for around an hour back to New Orleans and went to Cracker Barrel for dinner over the other side of the lake.  It was so nice,  the food was really good. 

After that we got dropped off at the hotel and then decide to go to Bourbon St for a look.  Ended up at a gay bar where the entertainment was twinky guys wearing jocks dancing on the bar (very classy of course).  You could tip them if you wanted but I kept my hands away. 

When it was time to leave the heavens opened up and it pissed down with rain.  We had to wait an hour but it didn't stop.  That made the 20 minute walk home lots of fun.  We got wet through. 

So the late night was not going to help the early start on Sunday at 9am.

paddle boat

Friday 29th June 2018

Big plans today with first doing a bus tour around New Orleans.  That was going to take 2 hours to drive around the different neighborhoods, to look where cyclone Katrina devastated the town back in 2005, one of the old cemeteries and a gin distillery.  Wasn't a bad trip at all to look at the different suburbs and housing around the town. 

After that we went to the Riverwalk to have some coffee and biegnets from Cafe Du Monde which was going to take place of lunch.  The Biegnets were pretty good if you like icing sugar but the cafe au lait was interesting, not like an aussie coffee.  We had booked a cruise on the paddle steamer  Natchez which included a buffet dinner.  We walked to the boat and it started to thunder and lightening and then rain.  That made the walk an experience. The cruise was nice.  It went from 6pm with the boat pulling out at 7pm and returning at 9. Great night, great views and lots of fun. Tomorrow we are going to visit a plantation and go air boat gator exploring.