Addo Elephant Park

We had a good nights sleep alone by the sea listening to the waves in the distance. We got up at 6:15am and I made coffee and Ellie made some rolls for our trip today using up the chicken from yesterdays dinner.
At 7:15am we left our camp and headed 3 miles down the road to Addo Elephant Park. This is a national park and one we had wanted to stay at but it was fully booked until April so that’s why we stayed at the holiday resort.
We have a wildcard so it was free entry and the place seemed pretty empty and quiet. Our first impressions were that the bush was unbelievably thick. How anybody ever spotted anything here would be a miracle but as we progressed further into the park it did thin a little and when we came to the first watering hole it was just a vast space of grass. The first and second watering hole we came to had 10 foot electric fence all around them only allowing smaller animals to get water. We sat there for ages watching the warthog do the bum shuffle in the mud with there babies.
From the second watering hole we found a hide and we had to walk through thick bush to the edge of a watering hole that was fenced with small slots for us to see or take pictures through. Here we found our first elephants and instantly realised why the other two watering holes had been fenced to keep them out. The elephants just stand in the watering hole, throwing mud in and then covering themselves. There were other animals around, warthog, zebra but they had no chance of getting a drink while the elephants were there.
We sat behind the fence for a good 30 minutes watching a tiny baby elephant drinking from his mum and then trying to get down into the watering hole on his belly. It was so funny.
By the time we left the hide it was 10:30am. Any predators would be in the shade by now so we made our way to the reception area passing 2 more huge watering holes on the way that were totally dominated by elephants. There must have been over 50 at both.
We got to the reception at the north end of the park where we would have camped and brought an ice cream each, ate them and then jumped in the car and made our way back to the south entrance and our camp.
We arrived back at camp at 1:30pm and we have gone from being alone to having 7 or 8 other campers including a unimog from Holland and 2 caravans similar to ours.
We just chilled out for the rest of the afternoon until about 3:30pm when a cold sea mist started rolling in so I lit the Braai early for dinner.
After dinner I went for a shower in the newly opened shower block and the water was cold which made me colder than I was so it was back to the caravan to hide at 7:30pm.Read more