Tuesday we drove about 70km to the bottom entrance of the Addo Elephant park, the biggest game reserve in the Eastern cape. It was originally set up to protect the Elephants which started off with 11 in number. Now there are anywhere from 300-400 elephants. It is a big five game reserve, so we had high expectations of seeing a fair amount.

During the middle of the day the temperatures got pretty warm, and there were a number of water holes we visited, in the hope of seeing animals congregate there.

Everywhere we looked we saw bushpigs…the odd warthog mixed in (they look very similar from a distance, and there are some subtle differences).
In between we saw Kudu, Ostrich, Vervet Monkey, Red Hartebeest, Black backed jackal, Mongoose, Elephant, Buffalo.

That was the first time we have seen a jackal in the wild, and a red hartebeest. Also to see a mongoose is a rarity for us and we saw about 4.
At one of the watering holes there were about 40 elephants ranging in size from some cute little ones that were about a year old, through to a big bull ready to mate and with a lot of aggression.

Elephants are generally pretty calm and docile creatures, but occasionally they can be dangerous if provoked, but mostly they are just big, clumsy and destructive, so you need to always keep that in mind.
At one stage we came across a big bull elephant in the middle of the road. I managed to turn the car around but he was about 10m behind us. Each time we stopped he kept coming towards us, and we were a little worried at one stage.

Did you know Elephants eat anywhere from 100-200kg each day. About 90% is undigested, which is why they need to eat so much. However it leaves a lot of mess that they produce! The dung beetle relies on this dung, and there are signs reminding they have the right of way!

As we were leaving we were lucky to get a couple of metres away from 3 young elephants ranging in size and age from about 1-3 years.

Unfortunately we only saw 2 of the big 5…My Lions still don’t want to see me…

We ended with a braai back at Kragga Kamma, followed by an early night