Colchester

I got up at 5am for am early morning 6am safari drive in Addo Park. I had a hot shower and light breakfast from the truck. I felt very tired and irritable, which indicated that I was still getting over my virus, and was rushing because I hadn't given myself enough time to get ready and pack up my tent. Once I was on the truck I could relax and look forward to the safari drive ahead.
I sat up in the opening above the truck cab again so that I could get an all around view of the park as we drove through it. We drove through the beautiful bushlands with their flowers and birds under overcast skies. We didn't see any larger mammals for a while and I began to wonder of this would be one of those drives where we didn't see very much. However, this changed as we saw two hyena in the bush at a distance. We also saw the occasional elephant in the distance and some kudu antelope by the roadside. Things got even better when we saw a mother hyena and her two young cubs by a waterhole and they walked right up and past our truck. This was the closest we had been to hyenas on the safari so it was special moment to see them so nearby. We travelled on and came across a small herd of elephants by the roadside eating heartily in the bush. There were adults and their infants with one very small baby elephant. Again, it was wonderful to spend time with these gentle animals and to feel their close bonds as an infant felt his or her mother's face sensitively with his or her small trunk. You could feel how caring and intelligent they are. I had a moment of feeling how it would be to be one of those elephants in the herd and felt a close connection with them. After spending some time with these elephants, it was time to move on, even though I could have stayed with them for a lot longer.
As we continued along the park road, we saw more antelope such as kudu and hartebeest. We saw a large bird of prey with big white wings which I will need to identify. We saw a larger herd of kudu near the road - there seemed to be a particularly large number of these large and beautifully striped antelope in this park. We also saw a black backed jackal lying sleepily under a bush. We passed a very lush green valley with two large elephants, including a large tusked male, feeding at the far end. This gave me the sense of a very primordial and ancient scene played out over millions of years. We entered another open green area soon after with many zebra, warthogs and hartebeest all feeding in close proximity - another scene that has played out since time immemorial. I was consciously soaking up all these images as I knew that this would be my last chance, on this trip, to see all these African wild animals roaming and living in their natural habitat. We saw a large herd of elephants feeding in the bush above the road and surmised that as the road rose and turned that we might be able to see them closer on the other side as they continued to walk up the hill. I was better able to see them as I was stood at the top of the truck so I directed Often, the driver, to reverse back to where I thought the elephants might meet the road. It took some time for the elephants to reach the road, but when they did, we were glad we had waited. My directions had gone well as the whole herd of elephants including several small infant elephants walked right up to our truck and then crossed the road in front of our truck. This was another special moment, of many such moments, with elephants in this park. As we continued down the dusty road, we came across two male lions lying in the grass. We were excited to see these magnificent big cats again. One of the young male lions was limping heavily and had clearly been injured in the leg, perhaps during a hunt. We drove the truck around to view the other male lion who had sat up. There was then a wonderful moment when this male lion stood up and gave that distinctive and primal, low, resonant, guttural roar that they give when communicating with other lions at a distance. We came across a small herd of zebra on the road with a couple of very small baby zebra with them. We continued on and came to a large open area that seemed filled with animals such as kudu, zebra, warthogs, hartebeest and eland. This reminded us of the density of animals we had seen back at the Ngorogoro crater and was a lovely way to draw this final safari experience for this trip to a close as we soon left through the gates of the park.
We drove on to the next town where we said our goodbyes to Phil and Bro who had been very friendly and likeable Liverpudlians on this trip. We were now down to five remaining travellers going all the way to Johannesburg - Grant, Brian, Kristin, Graham and myself.
We drove on to our next coastal destination at Cintsa. The hostel was beautifully positioned over a lagoon behind a long white sand beach with huge dunes behind it. We were given a lovely dorm room with a balcony overlooking the sea and our own toilet and shower. Unfortunately, I started feeling unwell again with the persistent virus I had been struggling with over the previous few days. I felt dizzy and exhausted and immediately fell asleep as soon as I lay down on my dorm bed. This made me late for my cook group duties which I felt guilty about but everyone seemed to understand that I wasn't well and purposely hadn't woken me up for the cooking. We had a very nice spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread for dinner and I did a lot of the washing up to make up for my earlier absence. We all retired to bed early after a long day and I went to sleep again very quickly.Read more