Addo Elephant Park

---

The Gaol runs regular day and weekend trips, so a bunch of us signed up for the trip to Addo Elephant Park on Sunday. There were 16 of us in total on the trip, mostly Americans, and we split up into two vans. It took about an hour and half to get to the park from Grahamstown, and the highway we drove seemed to be almost completely lined by other game parks; we were pretty excited to see a giraffe and some impala on the way there.

As we entered the park, we took notice of the giant “dung beetles have right of way” sign. The flightless dung beetle is only found in the Eastern Cape and it is an important part of the ecosystem, recycling nutrients from elephant and buffalo dung and returning them back to the soil. The beetles, and large piles of dung, were prevalent along the roads in the park and our driver Wayne did his best to avoid running them over. We were really hoping to catch a glimpse of a beetle actually rolling a ball of dung, but we only saw them empty handed.

The animals we saw the most of were warthogs. We caught quite a few of them in the middle of fights, and we also saw several babies. Ostriches were pretty common as well, and so were kudu. We saw some zebra, red hartebeest, and quite a few different types of birds. I was really surprised at how close all of the animals got to our van, but I guess they are used to the cars driving through.

We almost saw lions! The people in a big safari vehicle right next to us said they could see them just over some trees. Unfortunately our van wasn’t tall enough for us to see them. We were headed back to the picnic area for lunch when we saw our first elephant. We almost drove right past it, but luckily one of the girls spotted it. It was behind a lot of trees and hard to see, but it slowly walked out and onto the road in front of us.

We had a braai for lunch, and the food was delicious. Our drivers cooked for us and they made boerwoers (I mentioned them a couple posts ago but didn’t know how to spell it haha), which is South African sausage, as well as chicken, and veggie burgers. There were also these really good garlic braai rolls and a few bags of chips. They have Lays here, but the flavors are all different. Can’t think of any of them now though haha.

After lunch, we ran into a ton of elephants. We even got to see a baby! We also stopped at a hide, where we were able to get out of the car. There we saw a warthog, a jackal, and some cool bugs. All in all it was a very successful trip. We went to Pirates Pizza back in Grahamstown for dinner. I got a pizza with chicken, feta, and chutney (fruit spread type thing) on it that was really good - it was called the “Crazy Bitch.” Awesome.

Pictures

---

Comments

[Nic C]

Wow
So I found this through your facebook. You look to be having a lot of fun. Keep in touch! Also, more scenic pictures, please!

[Jim]

COOL ANIMALS!!!
Soooooooooo jealous...