Tembe Elephant Park

After another hot night, I was up at 6am closely followed by Ellie. I didn’t get a great nights sleep as it was roasting until about 4am until the temperature dropped because of the dew from the ground.
At 6:30am when we both went up for coffees and breakfast Pieter said he had been freezing all night because the cat had left him and he couldn’t find the spare blankets. He said he thought it was about 10°c but I reckon it was closer to 17°c as I was still in a t shirt and shorts.
Just as we were having breakfast Ellie suggested we go to Tembe Elephant park and Pieter said he’d be happy with that so he quickly threw some lunch things in a cool box, we all got properly dressed and had a quick breakfast and then we bundled into Karin and left with Pete driving, Simon riding shotgun and Ellie and me in the back.
The drive took about 90 minutes and we got to Tembe elephant park just after 9am, even after stopping for fuel.
It was an early start for us all and with our cameras ready we entered the park that had absolutely nobody else in it except for one safari vehicle from a nearby safari camp. Tembe is so close to the Kruger National Park and is so unknown by tourists that nobody goes there and we literally had thousands and thousands of national park all to ourselves. All we had to do now was find the wildlife.
Straight away we spotted Imyala. The females look a little like roe deer but the males are much darker and hairier and look like a cross between an antelope and a yak. In most parks these are rare but in Tembe there are hundreds and we saw hundreds.
Our first proper stop was a hide high up level with the treetops and as we entered the only other people in the park from the safari lodge were just leaving and said they hadn’t seen much. So that’s what made what happened next even more special.
The hide overlooks one of two large fresh watering holes in the park and just as we entered the hide a giraffe came into view and started munching on a tree right in front of us. Then an elephant came out of the forest and started drinking from the watering hole, then another and then another and off to the left in the background just out of camera shot were hundreds of impala’s and Imyalas. It was an amazing experience and felt like something you would see on national geographic.
We stayed there for a good 30 minutes before heading back out onto the game drive now the only people in the park.
We spotted more elephants, Zebra, Impala’s, imyalas and hundreds of birds.
At lunchtime we came to a second hide and Pete got the cool box out and we climbed up to the top overlooking the second watering hole.
At first there was just a lone elephant with around 20 impala’s dotted around while the elephant drank from the watering hole, but as we started to eat more elephants came out from the jungle and started drinking and then wallowing in the mud holes throwing mud all over themselves and rubbing it into there ears to stop themselves getting burnt. It was like national geographic live while we all watched and ate our lunch.
We stayed there for the best part of an hour before heading back into Karin and making our way back towards the entrance but 30 minutes in we found our route blocked by a huge bull elephant. He was standing right on the edge of the bend in the road and the closer we got the more he looked like he would charge us by stamping his feet and throwing dust everywhere. Our first plan was to wait but after 10 minutes he wasn’t backing down. Our second plan was to back the car out of sight and wait 10 minutes to see if he moved. He didn’t.
So our last plan was to go back and see if the road across the marshes was reopened and when we got there we found it blocked by barbed wire.
Now our only choice was to either wait a few hours or try and get past the elephant. We headed back to the bend in the road and the elephant was still there. Pieter slowed right down and dipped the clutch and revved the engine 4 or 5 times and the elephant stuck his ears right out making himself seem bigger and throwing his trunk and dust all over the place but he didn’t move forward so Pieter moved forward and then the elephant stepped back.
I knew then what Pieter knew. The elephant had just backed down and as pieter carried on creeping forward the elephant took another step back and then we were so close to the bend that Pieter floored it and around we went. The elephant came forward as soon as we were clear of him, growling and flapping his ears and throwing dust everywhere, but we were clear and safe. Whatever we saw after that seemed pretty tame.Read more