Blogs from Addo Elephant National Park, Eastern Cape, South Africa, Africa

We arrived at Ado Elephant Park to book in to our campsite. We did so and got given a map and satellite coordinates of where we would be staying, giving us a hint that we would be camping in the middle of nowhere. Driving our little Ford Figo deeper and deeper in the bush we eventually arrived at a dead end 1hr in, we parked up and saw a little track that we walked for another 5 minutes before arriving to the campsite very secluded in the middle of the bush with a veranda looking over the ‘watering hole’. We were running around the place so excited that we were staying here. The toilet and shower had sticks around them with gaps in between the sticks to make you feel like you are showering out in ... read more

July 25th to July 30th We left J-Bay at around 10:30am and drove back the way we came for 3 hours to Natures Valley. Almost every local we've met has reccommended that we stay in a place called Wild Spirit Backpackers. Origionally a travellers lodge built in 1983, Wild Spirit was lucky enough to be on land reclaimed as a national park so the indigeonous trees and animals have flourished here. We stayed in a cottage with a beautiful view of the valley and everywhere we looked was a new hiking trail leaving the property. We did a couple hikes in the area and we also went down to the lagoon where the ocean meets a slow moving jungle river. The backpackers provided free canoes so we got in and paddled around through the jungle surroundings ... read more

Donnerstag hatte ich endlich (:D) mal frei. Ja, ihr mögt es kaum glauben, aber immer Uni und so ist tatsächlich anstrengend ;) Jetzt hatte ich also Zeit, morgens in Ruhe joggen zu gehen (ja, ihr dürft überrascht gucken ;)) - traumhaft, so am Meer entlang. Mittags war ich ganz mutig! Eigentlich wollte ich mit einer Freundin ins Einkaufzentrum in die Stadt fahren, aber sie ist abgesprungen. Ich hab mir gedacht „Ach, Scheiß drauf, es ist tagsüber, ich fahr alleine!“ So war ich das erste mal alleine außerhalb von Summerstrand. Hat auch alles gut geklappt, bis ich dann auf dem Rückweg meinen (offiziellen) Bus um fünf Minuten verpasst hab. Aber als ich dann da gerade so etwas verloren mit meinem großen Wäscheständer, den ich gekauft hatte, stand, hielt neben mir ein Minibus an. Eigentlich hatte ich mir ... read more

Leaving stormy Cape Town, we picked up a rental car to begin our journey around South Africa. No trip here would be complete without venturing to the wine-lands area of Stellenbosch, a gorgeous European town set among some of the most picturesque patchwork of vineyards and dramatic mountain ranges. We sampled the wines at Neethlingshof, a wine farm at the end of a gorgeous tree lined avenue, with rose gardens and delightful wines. Unfortunately we were short on time so could only sample one wine farm in this area. Driving through the beautiful Western Cape along the Garden Route was interesting in itself. Stunning scenery of golden beaches and forested mountains mingled with mansions and huge rudimentary townships that sprawl for miles along the main roads. We had lunch at a café while we watched people ... read more

Today we drove to Addo Elephant National Park about 1 hour north of Port Elizabeth, which was about an hour and a half from Jeffreys bay where we were staying. We did a 2 hour game drive which was really awesome. We saw Elephants, Black-backed Fox, Kudu, Elans, Black Rhinocerous, and ostriches. We even saw the full Ostrich mating ritual from the attention getting all the way through the entire act, which lasted about 2 minutes haha. I had found out that we could record on the TV at Jeffreys Bay and so I recorded the World Cup games and after the game drive we all headed back home to watch the games and bbq! We couldn’t go to the bar to watch the games because of someone’s actions at the bar last night haha. Since ... read more

Hit the road by 6am, Chloe followed us down the drive then ran off to another warm room to sleep. The plan is to see Monkey Town just out of George, it opens at 8am and we should be there in time, spend a little time there then get to Addo early in the afternoon. Carmen the Garmin worked a treat and the roads were windy but nothing like the ones we were on to get to Oudtshoorn so we made it there in great time, in fact they were still setting up and opening. HAPPY MONKEYS GALORE They rescue all breeds of monkeys, lemurs etc that have been pets or in zoos, some smuggled from South America and there were a lot Lemurs from Madagascar. We were given a guide (you can’t walk through without ... read more

Bill and I had a couple more outings while he was here. We came back in to PE on Tuesday and had the braai with my roomies. Wednesday, my grade 9s at school had testing so I had a couple extra classes open, so Bill and I were able to go to Addo for the afternoon. I figured it was a national park and only 40 minutes from PE, so he had to go. The day that the girls and I went, about a month and a half ago, was very hot and drove all of the elephants to the waterholes. Wednesday was a little cloudy and not nearly as warm so they weren’t out in droves like before. But we still got to see quite a few elephants and a few other animals as well. ... read more