Monday, 02.10.06

Having been cloudy all day yesterday it now started to rain. There had been some short breaks but the thick cloud cover would not promise any improvement...

Addo Elephant NP is one of the larger South African National Parks covering some 1640 km². After the reintroduction of a small pride of lions it is home to the Big Five (elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, leopard) again. Since there has been a recent extension of the park´s area including a strip of coast it is even called a Big Seven (including whale and great white shark) reserve. The park was founded after the elephants in the cape province had been shot down to a number of 11 mainly as a result of increasing demand for farm land. By now there are some 450 elephants which is the maximum capacity for a park the size of Addo.

After arriving in Addo we had lunch first. Having stored our baggage in our safari tent we went on our first game drive immediately. While we did not see any buffalo in Mountain Zebra NP we had more luck here.

On our first drive we did not see one single elephant which was another disappointment after the persistant rain... But after a hot coffee at the restaurant we started again - and this time we were to be lucky!

Kudu beauty	Elephant family
Never stop eating...	A magnificent bull

 
The safari tents are very spacious with two beds, a small wardrobe, refrigerator and a little terrace. Thank god we also had an electric radiator because it was pretty cold - we just had to decide if we would use the power socket for the lights or for the heater. We chose the heater...

The tents lie adjacent to the water hole so you can hear all kinds of mysterious sounds in the night - including the strange snicker-like ones of the hyenas.  =>

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