Where The Elephants Roam

Sorry for the delayed postings, internet access in rural South Africa and Lesotho has been non-existent so we are a little behind in posting. The pictures of our first week in South Africa are up on the slideshow….

We departed our hilltop farm campground in the coastal town of Wilderness and made a quick one night stopover in Jeffrey’s Bay. JBay is a coastal surf mecca where flip flops and board shorts are the norm. We camped out one night in the back of a hostel on a cliff overlooking the main beach and then it was on to Addo Elephant Reserve further down the coast.

We arrived at Addo, checked into our camp for two nights (the only reservation we have had thus far in Africa), and then headed out in the Land Rover to see what the park had to offer. The camp area is separated from the animal reserve area by large electric fences so we negotiated another checkpoint and then we were out on exploring on our own. The animals are allowed to roam freely throughout the 250,000 acre reserve and we were unsure at the onset if we would even be lucky enough to see any of the game that the park had to offer. Within the first few minutes in the park we spotted a massive male elephant, and from then on, there were animals everywhere. There are over 450 elephants in the park, and it was easy to spot herds of them, some containing up to 50 elephants. At one point elephants emerged onto the road 3 feet from our car and caused me to panic a little as I had flashbacks of that car commercial at home where the elephant sits on the car. I was convinced they where going to do that, so I began backing up which freaked the elephants out more. Luckily Chad was the voice of reason and calmed me down. Those creatures are huge!!!!

We enjoyed the rest of that day and the next riding through the park spotting animals. We were able to see lions, water buffalos, jackals, tortoises, kudu, a few varieties of deer, the famous flightless dung beetle (they have the right away on the roads there) and many, many warthogs. The zebras, rhinos and hyenas alluded us but hopefully we can catch them next time. No need to pay for an expensive safari when you can self drive all of these amazing parks. We saw more elephants than we could count and it was breathtaking to see them in their natural environment enjoying all of the watering holes in the near 100 degree heat.

At the camp we meet a nice couple from outside Durban, in eastern South Africa, who went over Southern Africa with us and gave us some ideas of where to head to next. They were super helpful and nice and it was great to get some insider knowledge of SA and Namibia.

We left the park with the thought of driving north for a few hours, but never really came across a good place to stop for the night and ended up driving for 7 hours. We saw an advertisement for a small town just south of Lesotho called Rhodes, known for it’s dirt biking trails and fly fishing, things we have zero interest in, but on a whim decided that was where we were going to go. Rhodes turned out to be a over an hour from the closest paved road at an elevation of 6000 ft! We arrived well after dark and skipped the tent setup and spent the next 2 nights sleeping in the back of the Land Rover. Being a very small town far away from any big cities, Rhodes turned out to be very interesting and had very old school African thoughts about division of race, etc. We had a few beers in the one bar with some of the local fly fisherman who were very interested in our thoughts on Obama and what is happening in our county. Rhodes turned out to be a unique experience, one we definitely would not have been able to experience if we did not have our own car.