One wrong turn and the fifty-four kilometre drive which should have taken us a little more than an hour actually ended up taking almost four hours! Such is life without signboards and a misguided GPS that was trying in earnest to get us to drive across an estuary with no bridge or route around it in site. Not to mention two absolutely hopeless individuals when it comes to a sense of direction.

Lesson to all GPS owners: check your route on the computer first and then cross check with an old fashioned map, especially in areas that aren’t well covered. This was not the first time this had happened to us and we were more then a little tired and upset by the time we got ourselves to our final destination.

After retracing our steps we were finally able to get ourselves back onto the right road heading towards the southern side of the estuary. Huge, unspoiled sand dunes lay ahead in the distance before us as we travelled along the red twisting path down to Pomene.

Incredibly in some places the sandy track had eroded enough to reveal the long since absent concrete road that must have existed many years before.

As we neared our destination, so we found the scenery changing dramatically from the typical coconut groves that tended to permeate the regions further south. This was because we were entering a long established conservation area. We even found baobabs and palm trees growing side by side along the side of the road.

Many hours later we finally arrive at the Pomene Lodge (owned by the same people as Barra Lodge and Flamingo Bay) and boy was the long drive worthwhile. Set between a mangrove lined estuary on the one hand and a beautiful, secluded beach on the other this place promised to be a highlight of the trip thus far.