We leave Hogsback Resort area after a wonderful 2 days and head into South Africa's East Cape province which was Nelson Mandela's home base. We enter the town of Alice and the University of Fort Hart where Mandela attended law school before he began his liberation activities. We drive through Grahamstown, the capital of the East Cape Province and arrive at our destination about 3 PM. We are spending the night at the Addo Elephant National Park. The Park is home to the concentration of Addo African elephants as well as Cape Buffalo, lion, black rhino and countless prey, antelopes. The elephants are unique in that only 17% of the female elephants have tusks. We will be spending the night in rooms at a lodge within the Park and taking a late afternoon game drive in a truck.
(www.sanparks.org/parks/addo). Facilities are excellent with a nice double bed. Below is a picture of the skull/horns of the various animals including one of a dolphin; no silly, dolphins are not park residents.
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| Wall of Horns |
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| My Accommodations |
After checking in, we depart at 4 PM for a 2 1/2 hour safari drive. The gates to the camping areas within these National Parks are locked between 6:30 - 7 PM. The camping/cottage areas are surrounded by electric fences to keep the game animals form eating the resident campers...sounds like a good idea to me. Our safari drive is semi successful with the biggest prize being an awesome photo of a male kudu who seems to be posing as he stands on a ridge. What we saw were:
black-spotted jackal
2 adolescent elephants wrestling with their tusks
a sexually aroused male elephant; boy are they big!!
a couple of ostriches
the beautiful male kudu plus others
a bushbuck
Eland carcass
warthog family
Egyptian geese
scrub hare (rabbit)
dung beetles
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| Male Kudu |
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| Adolescent Wrestlers |
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| Dung Beetles |
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| Eland Carcass - Leftovers |
We get back to the cottages at 6:15 PM. Dinner and early to bed. Since I have an extensive library on my Kindle, I have been reading every night and am now reading my 6 th book, "Cutting for Stone". Tomorrow, we are going out at 6 AM for our final, yes final, drive safari to see if we can duplicate the luck we had in Kruger; a lion and maybe a leopard....zzzzz
We leave Hogsback Resort area after a wonderful 2 days and head into South Africa's East Cape province which was Nelson Mandela's home base. We enter the town of Alice and the University of Fort Hart where Mandela attended law school before he began his liberation activities. We drive through Grahamstown, the capital of the East Cape Province and arrive at our destination about 3 PM. We are spending the night at the Addo Elephant National Park. The Park is home to the concentration of Addo African elephants as well as Cape Buffalo, lion, black rhino and countless prey, antelopes. The elephants are unique in that only 17% of the female elephants have tusks. We will be spending the night in rooms at a lodge within the Park and taking a late afternoon game drive in a truck. (www.sanparks.org/parks/addo). Facilities are excellent with a nice double bed. Below is a picture of the skull/horns of the various animals including one of a dolphin; no silly, dolphins are not park residents.
Dear Dad,
ReplyDeleteWe are all enjoying following your blog. We hope you are a having a blast on what will be your last trip of this sort. Mother is putting her foot down. Not simply because you have taken to posting photos of yourself in your unmentionables, but more because of the hair cut incident. She believes your new do shows a serious lack of judgement and begs you to remember that you have a lumpy head. One look at the picture of you with your stylist sent mom into a dither. She obviously has a bad case of ptsd, because she keeps recalling your first anniversary, when you evidently sheared yourself. Anyhoo, we miss you and beg you to enjoy the final leg of your journey. Hope your hair grows quickly so you don't get it too bad upon your return home.
xo,
Laura
P.S.- Rick is most impressed by the photo of you in your skivvies with all the chicks and wants to know when your getting a tattoo.
P.P.S.- Don't forget my conflict free diamond.