Addo Elephant Park

I really wanted to see some critters on this trip and since we had purchased The Wild Card, which gave us free entry to all of the National Parks in ZA, Addo was on the list. We booked a place for two nights and found ourselves in a wonderful thatch roofed duplex with a view of the game reserve. We entered the reserve from the South gate and had to drive 37 km in an hour to make it before they closed the gate in 1 hour to the rest camp. The speed limit in the park is 40 km so you do the math. We're cruising along when all of the sudden we spot a herd of elephants on another road so of course we took a detour. I pulled over to observe when a large bull started walking our way. I didn't know what to do so I threw the car into reverse and started to back up. Ambereen was telling me to stop. There was another care backing up too so it got confusing! I did stop and the bull walked right towards us.

We ended up booking a morning game drive. It was cool but pricey and we later found out that we could have hired a Ranger to drive with us in our vehicle for a private drive at a fraction of the cost. Oh well, not everything we do ends up perfect just so you know. We did see some cool things including two lions who were lounging around the road.

After deciding to go on our own game drives we ended up at a watering hole (known as a pan) where a herd of elephant were hanging out. We parked and just watched for about an hour as people came and went until we were alone with many elephant. A few came up behind us along a path leading the the pan and we were surprised at how close they came to the car. We saw lots a babies including one who used the sign as a scratching post. Behavior he learned from his mom.

Two males ended up locking tusks right behind the car and I had to move or we could have been crushed!