Week 4 Eastern Cape Part 1 Warning - this blog will contain loads of animal photos Wed 7 Oct Bloody typical, the day I have to travel is gorgeously sunny and hot. Anyhow, managed to take in the rays all morning before Ady gave me a lovely lunch and I got a lift up to the bus I decided to use Intercape this time and boy was it a cut above the Baz bus. They had wide reclining seats and huge windows, with a conductress on board to get you checked in and also to bring round drinks. I was lucky [View Full Entry]

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On August 27th, we took Tiffany for her first game drive in Addo National Park. This national park is famous for the number of elephants that you can see there. We found this watering hole just in time to see a large herd of elephants walk up to drink. There were many females with a number of young babies with them. I later learned in a book that because the elephant gestation period is so long that a mom elephant can have more than one baby with her at a time. It was so cool to watch them drink. The really [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, Well after flying down the coast on SA's N2 Hwy which is a really nice road we arrived at Port Elizabeth. We were supposed to stay in Gramstown in a hostel that was actually an old prison but they were booked when we got there so we just pushed through to PE. Our decision to keep going was rewarded with one of the nicest hostels we've stayed in, much nicer than some old prison what the hell were we thinking;) So our main adventure was Addo Elephant Nat'l Park which allowed us again to use the Roc-a-rolla as our [View Full Entry]

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30/01/09 - This morning we went on another safari at Addo. We saw a lot more animals than the previous night with the first being a pride of lions right next to the road. We were parked so close to one of the males that a fellow passengers remarked that one leap and he would reach the jeep. However, the ranger answered that he had no reason to as they were all used to cars and people, were well-fed and the male was more interested in one of the females anyway. We stayed there for about 5 minutes, then moved on [View Full Entry]

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29/01/09 - Today we drove to Addo Elephant Park via Pt. Elizabeth. We had booked a few days earlier and were hoping to stay in the actual park where you can observe the animals from cabins near waterholes, but unfortunately it was all booked out. So we booked the Elephant House which was about 10 minutes away from the park. This was a beautiful, old English style hotel. Sunset Safari That evening we went on a fabulous sunset safari at Addo Elephant Park. Below are some of the animals we saw and the spot where we were able to leave the [View Full Entry]

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From Coffee Bay we travelled to Port Elizabeth (PE) to fetch an extra person from the Airport then went further inland to our next accommodation, Orange Elephant Backpackers. Orange Elephant is about 8 km from Addo Elephant National Park. The rooms feel more like a guesthouse. Each little house had two double rooms with a small lounge and bathroom. The main area has a restaurant and bar area. (The food at the restaurant was very good) We spent the whole of the next day in the National Park and in the evening we sat around the camp fire and listened to [View Full Entry]

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Well, it is now Christmas Eve - and outside it is something like 26 degrees at 9am in the morning. We are now in Port Elizabeth airport, just having checked in for our flight to Cape Town - so thought we would fill you in on our travels over the past two days. Writing duties fall to Gavin today - as Claire is sitting outside catching some sun before we board the plane for a ‘sunless’ two hour period. Serious sun-bathing that, eh! But what have we been up to over the past two days? Well, after leaving our fabulous tree [View Full Entry]

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After our time at Addo we made our way to another section of the park, Woody Cape, which sits along the coastline (and doesn't house any elephants). It was from here that we were to start our 2 day hike. We met up with four young locals and cooked a braai for tea at the hut where we spent the night at the base of the trail. Day 1 of the hike was 19.5 km and was mostly walking through forest and along the beach. The scenery was amazing and we got to know the four locals as we walked along. [View Full Entry]

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Thursday morning some of us went quad-biking (4-wheeling) in the indiginous forest near Tsitsikamma. It was pretty cool. I liked the sand dunes in Namibia better for 4-wheeling but it was still fun! Drizzling rain and lots of mud. From there we drove to Jeffery's Bay, the surfing mecca of South Africa. However, it is summer and all the good waves are in the winter. So they were mostly non-existent. Our hostel, Island Vibe Backpackers, was quite nice and had a good atmosphere. Lots of people to get to know. There were tons of tents though, practically wall to wall on [View Full Entry]

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After two nights at Tsitsikamma national park (where we didnt do much as Alice was feeling ill) we made our way to Addo Elephant Park, a national park of 380,000 hectares. We arrived late afternoon and after setting up our tent (safely inside the fence of the main camp) we went on an evening game drive. Unfortunately we didnt see any lions but we did get right up close to a pack of hyenas. We saw cubs playing, others feeding on carcasses and calling to each other. It really was very entertaining! The next day we spent the day driving around [View Full Entry]

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