Date of Entry: December 4th 2016
Date of Writing: May 3rd 2017
I wake up early and meet to friendly german guys who will be joining me on my small group day safari to Addo National park which I booked through lungile hostel for around 1000 rand (100 CAD). We don’t wait long as our awesome driver Malcolm is right on time and is driving an awesome true safari jeep, my first real traditional what you’d imagine when you think safari in Africa kind of vehicle. Addo Elephant park is just a little over a half hour dive away from Port Elizabeth and the drive passes quickly enough and soon enough we’re in the park looking at animals. Quickly we’re welcomed by some kind of hawk, and lots of red hardebeast.
But addo isn’t named Addo red hardebeeast and hawk park, and it doesnt take us long before we drive through the roads which cut through an absurdly dense thicket of branches that I think will make seeing much of anything here pretty difficult, and meet the a small group of the creatures who gave this park it’s name. The elephants are huddled around a small and empty artificial waterhole trying to suck moisture from the pump. It’s quite dry here still and these beautiful giants manage to look absolutely parched.
It’s the first safari for my two german friends and so they are utterly captured by these amazing animals. I am too of course, being a small child at heart means just because I’ve seen something similar before I lose the awe when seeing it again, something I’m very thankful for. Eventually though we continue on and before long we find some warthogs, a pair of male ostriches, and of course another elephant, this one right on our roads and not eager to give way and let us pass immediately, though he does eventually relent.
As we continue through the still dense undergrowth of Addo Elephant park we stumble upon some Zebras which I still can’t get enough of, a tortoise and of course more elephants just doing their thing in nature. I’m really going to miss the life of safaris. It’s just so enthralling to watch these animals I’ve only ever seen in zoos going about their day to day life.
As we round a corner of sorts coming to an intersection and reaching another waterhole, this one actually with water inside it, though we can’t see that, as it’s surrounded by a big family of elepants maybe 20 meters from the road. Patiently waiting their turn and watching the elephants with thirsty eyes are some warthogs and a very old and lone cape buffalo that has been kicked out of his group for being too old. Two tortoises also lookon from a distance.
The warthogs are less patient than some of the other animals, encroaching on the elephants until some of the adolescents decide it would be fun to torment these little animals by chasing them around the waterhole anytime they get too close to a simple sip of water. Sadly I’ve lost the video of this, so instead here’s some more elephant pictures. It’s the last entry for a while that will include those.
We drive onwards for a while longer and before long we’ve reached another much bigger and nicer waterhole that seems to be a natural one too. Here are hundreds of elephants and I’m starting to think that this park was aptly named. We also meet a huge family group crossing the road in front of us so close we could practically reach out and touch them. The group makes it to one fairly unoccupied corner of the crowded little lake and starts drinking thirstily. We also find a tortoise.
We spend a good long while at this waterhole watching the elephants cavort around in the water. The mud here turns is a deep black and they seem to love covering themselves in it. The highlight is watching another old buffalo look on as the teenage elephants more or less have a WWF wresting match in the middle of the pool.
Elephants are playful creatures when there is water around and the wrestling match just keep expanding amongst the young elephants in the middle of the pool. I could watch them for years playing there in the middle of the pool, but eventually it’s time to move on, these giants are incredible, but my two german friends have not seen any big cats yet, and while Addo does not have leopards, there are a few resident lions so we take off searching for them.
Just before we leave one of the big elephant groups chooses to leave just in front of us, giving the thirsty warthogs space to grab a drink. We drive onwards in search of lions but only find an ostrich, a friendly tortoise and an oddly shopped bird’s nest locals joke about using as something to warm a certain part of the male anatomy.
We stop for a delicious lunch at yet another excellent park restaurant, south Africa’s food game is on point. After this we drive as far as we can into distant sections of the park where some lions apparently like to hang out, but sadly, in the heat of the early afternoon the big cats are nowhere to be seen. In a big barren plain though we do find a massive heard of zebras mixed with plenty of elephants gathered around another waterhole. A constant truth in Africa is that water is the most vital thing, find it, and you will find animals. There’s even the smallest baby zebra I’ve seen yet.
Now we get some true action shots as one particularly excited elephants gives us something of a show in the middle of the pool. And to think I didn’t know that elephants had 5 legs.
We keep driving onwards in search of lions but find only more buffaloes, more elephants,, and some cool looking birds including one very interesting ones.There’s also some cool mud formations carved out by earlier rains that stand out amongst the constant thickets of undergrowth.
As we drive onwards, Malcolm finds something very strange a giant dead and extremely bloated buffalo just off the road. He has many years experience guiding safari’s but can’t figure out what would have killed a buffalo and left it like this. Eventually though we drive onwards and find some more elephants almost hidden by the undergrowth.
Eventually we find out way back to the first dried out waterhole where we saw our first elephants and find quite a great spectacle of a single male elephant sucking water out of the dried up tap area and spraying the all to eager warthogs who are coming to try to steal what little water they can.
On our way out of the park we find two animals I’ve never seen before, Africa is full of surprises, one is a bird whose name I cannot remember and the other is Africa’s biggest species of antelope, the eland. Both are fascinating and are complemented by more elephants, a corey bastard, an ostrich, a hare, and a red hartebeest.
We leave the park sad to have not seen lions but thrilled to have seen so many amazing elephant moments. We all snap a picture together than Malcolm drives us back to Lungile Hostel and I head out for indian food as my last meal in port Elizabeth before my night bus back to cape town where my Africa adventure began. I fell in love with that city, when I was first there, and am excited to spend my last 4 or so days in Africa back there. It’s a city I could see living in. And one of my favourite big cities around the world after so many travels. I hope I get to go back one day.
