The main reason and the final destination of our south african road trip always was the Addo-Elephant-Nationalpark about an hour drive north of Port Elizabeth. The Nationalpark is a 1640 km² wildlife park and the biggest one on the eastcape. It was founded in 1931 to protect the last eleven remaining Elephants who have not yet fallen victim to poachers. Luckily today there are hundreds of them.
Except elephants there are dozens of other wild animals you can encounter either on your own in your vehicle or in several other ways like game drives, several day safaris or even with a Quad.
There are many options to enjoy this beautiful piece of nature and wildlife. We decided to stay outside of the park as accommodation in the park is quite expensive and can cost up to 600 Euro a night. We had a beautiful small cottage for a fraction of that price. If you stay outside you will have to pay entry each day you´re going into the park.
The accommodation we booked is called Addo Wildlife and as you can see in the photos was worth it. They also have a beautiful Garden as well as a Pool. Other than the coastal regions it can get brutally hot here in the inland so a pool is very beneficial.
On the day of arrival we actually wanted to participate on a sunset game drive, a guided drive in a 4x4 car into the sunset. As the park never responded to our request we skipped that and went into the park twice with our own vehicle.
It was definitely lot of fun and I would do it again any time but you have to be aware that it can be quite exhausting. In the park you´re not allowed to go faster than 40km/h which is good. Driving on dirt roads and constantly watching out to find some wildlife will make you absolutely tired.
After a while everything looks the same and all the wild animals are perfectly camouflaged. Anyway, on our first day in the park and 8 hours of driving we managed to find some animals on our own. Not as many as expected but at least we´ve found them on our own.
It was the first time in quite a while I was using my camera again. Unfortunately my telelens on my micro four third camera only has 150mm which makes it still quite hard to get really good shots. Some animals like the Red Heartbeast, a Kudu or a Eland are pretty easy to spot while others are almost impossible to find.
Of course we´ve seen the elephants pretty early on the first day but not as many as on the second day so I´ll wait to to show you them. To keep you in a good mood there are these cards on which almost all the animals are listed. Each animal you spot gives you points, some give more and some give less depending on how hard they are to find.
If you look at our card you will see that we haven´t even seen half of all the animals.
Anyway, lets go on with some animals photos. In addition to the Dung Beetle, of which there are so many that you have to be careful not to run over them, there are also plenty of birds and the biggest of all, the ostrich
On the first day we even got lucky enough to spot a Black backed Jackal that actually is pretty common and easy to spot but during these two days it was the only one we saw. Probably because they´re almost invisible on these brown and green fields.
Suddenly one of them appeared in front of our car and this is the reason why you should not go faster than 40km/h. As quickly as he was there he was gone again.
There are plenty of animals that are so easy to spot but yet I heard of people who left without seeing one single animal. As the name of the park suggests there are many many elephants and I can´t imagine to not see one of them. Other animals are pretty common are Zebras and Warthogs.
I haven´t been as exhausted as after that first day for a while. I did not expect it to be that hard but the driving and the constant focus on finding any animals makes you unbelievable tired. So after almost 8 hours in the park on our first day we gave up. As there are not many restaurant options in that area we just had dinner in the hotel.
After a good sleep we were ready for the second round. Since the park is quite big you should definitely take a card with you and decide in time where to drive first.
There are large waterholes which are of course very popular with wildlife of all kinds.
So for that second day in the park we decided to enter the park in the north and leave it in the south as we´re leaving the Nationalpark anyway. It was still early and we thought it might be a good idea to drive to one of the waterholes. That turned out to be the best decision ever as we bumped into a huge herd of elephants. First there were a few and then there were coming more and more small families until there were about 100 elephants.
This was one of the best experiences I ever made in my whole life.
The baby elephants were the absolute highlight. It was so funny and so much fun the see them learning from their older siblings and parents. We could have stayed here forever and watch them although some of them came really close to our car and I almost shit my pants. Even these animals are very friendly it is a strange feeling if a 6 ton elephants stands one meter away from your car.
After about 30 minutes at that waterhole we went on but this was such an amazing experience that it was already worth all the efforts to get to here.
On that second day we had a bit more luck as we were seeing all the animals from the first day within the first two hours. We also spotted a Caracal which is some kind of wildcat as well as a Cape Grysbok, both are not easy to find. Unfortunately I was too late and only got a photo of the back from the big cat.
The Buffalos are also common and not too hard to find. You really need to pay a lot of attention as even those huge and heavy animals that you should think are unmissable manage to pass you by in the bushes next to you without being noticed. By the way, that is one reason why you should not get out of the car ever. The next lion could be meters away. ;)
Unfortunately there were still many animals we haven´t found during our two days self driving safari like the Rhino, Lion, Leopard and the Hyena. It would have been too good to see one of them but they are so hard to find and without a guide its almost impossible.
On the way out we saw another two elephants far far away from their herd and my guess is that they were going to provide for offspring. Something you don´t see every day and I probably won´t see again ever.
On the way out through the south gate some cheeky Velvet Monkeys appeared to say goodbye. What a perfect ender to an amazing experience I highly recommend to visit that park if you ever happen to be here in south africa.
