Sharon and Andy's World Tour 2006

Tuesday 31 January

One of Sharon's goals when planning the South Africa stage of the trip was to visit the Elephant Reserve just outside the village of Addo.

Although the park contains various wildlife other than elephants, we were only blessed with multiple sightings of warthogs (keep your comments to yourselves please!), and some antelope.
The park is big, with numerous 'loops' to drive along in the hope of catching sight of beasties, and so after a few hours of fruitless circling we decided to take a rest stop at a large watering hole surrounded by low-lying wooded hills.

Just as we were about to give up hope I spied movement up in the woods to our left; a train of elephants! As we waited we noticed knots of elephants approching from several directions, including a largish group of cows with their calves.

Our patience was rewarded when five of the bull elephants made their way down to the watering hole to begin drinking and bathing only 20 or so meters from where we sat in the car!

Incredibly pleased with this close-up sighting of elephants we decided to take our leave of the Reserve, but paused at a 'hide' on the way out where - to our surprise - we found a small elephant bathing itself completely oblivious to our presence!

Not much to write about Port Elizabeth itself except to say another good couple of nights accommodation to prepare us for the next leg.