Addo Week 4 Nov 21 to 28

The week started quietly enough with a day of driving around the Game Reserve digging up broken pipes and fixing them, the ground was like concrete - given the choice the Namibian Desert is the number one choice for digging! Tuesday was a roasting day with 42 degree heat and no cloud cover. Standing in the back of the ute driving through the most inhospitable parts of the Park by a driver who had yet to discover the brake was a hideous experience. Anyway the day ended and we just had time for a quick shower before we were off again for ‘Sundowners’ at the Top of The World. This involved another 4 wheel drive trip up into rhino country to have drinks, watch the sunset and say farewell to Kendal the Elephant Research Assistant who had been so kind to Nikki and I. Allowing us to accompany her on her research trips and patiently explaining who was who in the various Ellie Groups.
We were up and about by 4.30am the next morning ready for a trip to Bird Island - a sanctuary for Gannets and Penguins situated 8k off the coast. It is home to two thirds of the world’s nesting gannets. It measures less than one hectare and its highest point is 9 metres above sea level. It has highly restricted access and forms part of SanParks’ responsibilities.
We were met by our skipper for the day - Krooz, a front row forward of immense proportions with a smiley and boyish demeanour ‘solid and dependable’ are words that immediately spring to mind.
The boat that was to take us to Bird Island is operated by the Anti Poaching Unit of SanParks - it is powered by two 200 HP engines and is the fastest boat in South Africa. It was Krooz’s pride and joy. Far too late we discovered Krooz was serious adrenalin junky. The boat consisted of a rigid hull with rubber gunwales, there were 8 seats on which you sat astride similar to a pillion passenger on a motorbike, in front a curved chrome handle to hold.
We were given a safety briefing and then provided with life vests (fair enough) but why helmets? We boarded in the calm of the Sunday River estuary. Surrounded by beautiful sand dunes and the occasional cry of sea birds - it was idyllic. Peace was shattered by the amazing roar of the twin Yamaha engines and we literally took off from the jetty and zipped across the top of the glass like surface weaving in and out of sand banks, semi submerged logs (Krooz later said we had got up to 95k per hour) lots of fun we thought to ourselves. We had been told in Krooz’s Afrikaans accent that the next bit might be ‘a little Hair rraising’. It involved going into the open sea from the estuary and crashing through massive breakers which would put Bells Beach to shame....it was exhilarating as the boat was airborne a lot of the time with the engines screaming in the open air, the bone crunching whack as we launched ourselves from one wave to the next was enough to shatter all the teeth in your mouth.
Once out and passed the waves we ran parallel with the coast. This part of the coast is all part of the expanded Addo National Park and consists of one of the world’s largest coastal dune fields - miles and miles of beautifully sculptured white sand dunes of amazing design and size. On and on we went for at least one and half hours we were joined by dolphins leaping joyfully in the air and got within 25m of a gently rolling Humpback whale. The sea had a sizable swell; we just crashed our way through. Bird Island is surrounded by semi submerged rocks, the wind was strongish so getting in was a tricky operation.
Bird Island consists of some derelict building, some rude accommodation for the Anti Poaching Unit and the odd researcher, a lighthouse, hundreds of African Penguins, and thousands upon thousands of gannets.
The Penguins were moulting so spent their time standing still and looking rather dishevelled. Occasionally the ones with their new water proof plumage would waddle along the rocks and gracefully pop into the sea.
We wandered around and sat in the sun. We were waiting for the technicians to fix the island’s generators. At long last they appeared ready to return to the mainland.
For the return trip we had an additional passenger, a rather selfish French researcher who elbowed his way on board clutching his laptop to his chest. The only other change was the weather. The wind had picked up and the waves had increased in power,size and frequency.
Rather than returning along the coast we first had to go further out to Le Croix Island to pick up 3 Rangers who had been doing a penguin census.
The trip was intensely frightening. There is a saying ‘there are no atheists in a foxhole’ there were certainly no atheists on our boat. The waves were 15 feet above the boat, the wind was in excess of 40 knots per hour, the voyage went on and on and on. Crashing down time after time between the crests of the waves, water surging and breaking over the boat until we were soaked to the skin, low visibility. At one stage Krooz slowed it down turned to us and offered us the chance to return to the shore and be dropped off. Only the Frenchman voted for this!! Over ruled by the majority on we went....
Finally Le Croix appeared, disappeared ,then appeared as we went up and down in the swell. The island was no more than a rock sticking out in the sea. We were unable to approach the jetty as it was far too dangerous. So we signalled to the 3 forlorn figures to move to the opposite side of the island. There was no place to dock. One guy was so scared he had to be pulled off the rock face where he was hanging on like a limpet, and bodily thrown onto the front of the boat.
The return to the Estuary mouth was dangerous with a huge surging following sea and breaking waves it only needed a wave to be misjudged and we would have flipped over lengthways. We didn’t and when we finally got our feet onto dry land it was with immense relief.
The last we saw of the frog he was crouching in the back of a ute clutching a soaking wet computer bag.
Up early the next day we had been invited by the Conservation Manager for a trip in his UltraLite. The sun was just peeping through when we took off. We quartered the Park and after 20 or so minutes were rewarded with the sight of one of the shyest animals in Africa the black rhino. In fact we spotted four. The flight was lots of fun with a no nonsense approach.
Our final day we visited the Woody Cape Section of the park which encompasses the Dune Fields, it is fun to run helter skelter down a 100m sand dune. We also managed a 7k hike in the woods.
So that was our time at Addo, a special place in the hearts of many South Africans and a success story on elephant conservation.

Addo Week 3 Nov 14 to 21

Another super weekend was spent with Elize and Eugene. We motored up to The Crags, on the Garden Route, where we visited Birds of Eden and Monkeyland. Birds of Eden is the world’s largest free flight aviary – a feat of engineering housing 100s of re-homed birds. Monkeyland is also a sanctuary housing squirrel, capuchin, howler and vervet monkeys as well as gibbon and lemur. They all swing about freely in a forest surrounded by an electric fence that keeps the baboons out more than the monkeys in. Courtesy of Elize and Mantis we overnighted in a luxurious villa at Lake Pleasant where the restaurant served us in our own dining room. Sunday was rather gloomy day on which we relaxed, walked on the beach and poor Elize drove us home in the pouring rain.
We arrived back at Addo on a very cold and blustery Monday morning where we were treated to more fence patrol on which we saved at least 2 tortoises.
The rest of the week was spent taking down fences which involved hard manual labour in the hot African sun. Lugging great timber poles and chucking them onto the back of trucks, tortuously untying wire bindings whilst avoiding electric fencing. Nikki became an ace at tossing the caber.
One morning we were up at 430am for a trip with the Lion and Buffalo Researcher. Tracking these animals via a radio signal connected to collars on the lions and some buffs. His research is two pronged...the dietary analysis of lions which involved the collection of lion dung (what is it about animal researchers and their attraction to dung??)...they like meat. And the behavioural change to the Buffalo herd in response to the introduction of lions into their environment...apparently they form defensive groups and repel the attacking lions.
We successfully located 4 lions one with a fresh kill of kudu which it was jealously guarding. Interestingly given the dense undergrowth in Addo the male lion is not the laid back sheik of the savanna but actually earns his keep and hunts for himself.
One of the highlights of the week was a side trip to another part of the Addo National Park called Zuurburg Mountains where we undertook a 4 hour hike in the most glorious surroundings high above the surrounding countryside, there was not a lot of game to see but we did come across a secretive little bush buck doing its thing in the undergrowth. It was hot and we got through 5 litres of water between us.
The weekend was spent relaxing in PE with Elize and her Mum and brother we had a Braai (bbq) on both evenings the second of which was locally caught squid mmmm delicious. One of Elize’s friends runs a fleet of squid boats out of PE most of which is exported to Greece and Spain. Sunday morning saw us tucking into the best pork sausages known to mankind at the Shamwari Townhouse a boutique hotel with the superb decor and food, well done Elize!
Sunday evening saw us return for our last week at Addo...little did we realize what was in store for us.

Addo Week 2 Nov 8 to 13

The weekend was amazing. Our friend Elize works for Mantis Collection, who co-own Shamwari Game Reserve, with Dubai World. Shamwari is a 5 star Game Park located only 40k from Addo. We stayed in a private house on top of a hill overlooking part of the reserve. The house was colonial to its bootstraps including full size snooker table. From the lush manicured lawns we gazed over a herd of zebra, blessbok (so called as they make a noise like a sneeze) and wildebeest. During our game drive we watched white rhino including a baby and saw a brown hyena – very rare. We dined magnificently on Kudu and generally enjoyed a weekend of luxury. Come Sunday evening it was time to return to our rudimentary living at Addo. The week was full of exciting and interesting activities.
After two days of “Fence Patrol” (which nearly drove Nikki to distraction from boredom) we joined the Rhino researcher for a day and drove (well – bumped) through the most inaccessible areas of Addo high in the hills. The purpose was to collect the results of a number of hidden cameras which had been placed in strategic locations near waterholes and along game trails. The purpose of the camera traps was to monitor herd and their movements, especially in areas where there were predators and no predators so that the “before and after could be compared. The results of such research will help determine the optimum number of predators to release in a new area. It was surprisingly exciting downloading the photos to see what had passed by over the previous 48 hours.....a sleeping rhino, a secretive aardvark, wandering kudu, quizzical baboons were all revealed. It was like spying on a private world. Jordi, the researcher squealed with delight when a photo showed a particular female rhino whom she had not seen for 2 years and thought had died or been poached - it even had a new baby. We helped collect rhino dung from which tests reveal pregnancy, testosterone levels and even stress - these were carefully packed away like precious jewels.
A night of “hyena calling” was also on the agenda. We left camp to enter the park at around 6.30pm – complete with warthog carcass and lion/hyena recordings in our buckie. Hyena calling is where you “call” the hyena to a carcass tied to the ground, with the aid of hyena, warthog and lion call recordings, and so the hyena should start getting used to being near a vehicle which will make darting easier in future when the animals are collared. The sunset drive was super with elephant, buffalo and kudu sightings. We drove around 30kms into the game area where the hyenas were recently sighted and hammered our stake into the ground to which we tied our delicious looking carcass. Out came the audio equipment and the cacophony started – squealing hogs, calling lions and cackling hyena – what a racket - it certainly resembled nothing that we had ever heard in the wild. We shone a huge beam around the vehicle to spot the fruits of our success – nothing. It got later and later, and colder and colder...eventually we decided to make a move back to camp. And then Stuart spotted her - the lioness.....striding slowly towards our vehicle where she sat down, by the side of the buckie just a metre from under our noses, and she waited.....waited....kept looking back to whence she came.... and waited some more. Occasionally she sniffed the air no doubt catching a whiff of the hog carcass...or maybe it was the small pool of blood still in our buckie that we forgot to wash off! Ten minutes later our lioness moved to the back of the buckie, still sniffing the air, still looking back into the bush. Again she waited and waited. At this point, with her so close, we started to get a little concerned that she might not be sniffing the carcass and be preparing herself to pounce into our vehicle after the blood, but these creatures see the vehicles as solid objects, regardless of the open top, so maybe she was just a little confused as the truck did act as a wind break between her jaws and the hog. Much to our relief she got up, walked around the buckie and headed for the carcass around which her jaws were finally set – no doubt much to her relief. We observed her for some time and then out of the bush sprang her three adolescent cubs, bounding toward their dinner, happy to have mum off a night’s hunting. At this point, frost bite had almost set in and we headed back to camp, again treated to lion, owl and elephant sightings, oh...and a flat tyre that we changed very quickly, luckily some way away from the feasting carnivores.
The week ended with a sedate morning horse ride at Nyati where we viewed eland, blue crane and elephant and an afternoon of elephant identification with Kendal, our elephant researcher. Almost all of Addo’s 420 elephants are known by name and their herds are classified by a letter of the alphabet, with each ellie’s ear notches marked so that they can be easily identified. There is nothing easy about it, as we discovered when faced with the “B” herd at Rooidam – some 80 elephants. Not knowing where to start we were just satisfied to watch them frolic in the water. We did however manage to find Ariadne’s week old newborn which we named Zsou Zsou – logically a member of the “A” herd!

Addo National Park Week 1 - Nov 2 to Nov 7

The next day we went to the airport to be picked up by the Addo National Park ranger for our one month of volunteer work. The other volunteer surprised us somewhat when upon meeting us she looked at me and exclaimed ‘oh you are not German, I was told only Germans were working on zis project’ .....Nikki was grinning away in the background.
The first task was to be given the equivalent of $40 each and told to buy food for the next week. A tricky task at the best of times but exacerbated by our new work mate being a vegetarian!
Two hours later we drove through the main gates of Addo Elephant National Park. 164000 hectares of African bush. Our accommodation for the next month was to be a 2 person ‘Wendy house’ with shared kitchen and ablutions.
As instructed we reported for duty at 7am the next morning in time for the daily Rangers Meeting, proceedings started with the 12 rangers standing in a circle and when the Manager arrived prayers were said and the duties of the day were outlined for each small group. We went along with the environmental clean up crew which involved swaying around in the flat bed of a crane truck for a couple of hours during which we saw many elephants, warthogs, ostrich, kudu, leopard tortoises, and red hartebeest.....a most unusual Game Drive. We then got to work collecting rusty barbed wire, old railway lines, metres of rusting cables, corrugated iron etc all of which had been left by the farm operators prior to the land being turned over to the National Park. We lunched near a waterhole and siestered under an acacia tree for one and half hours....what a stress free life these guys have, we then checked bore holes, water pumps and a section of the electrified fence.
The weather was fantastic with cloudless sky and 30c. The next day we went on a long drive to a remote section of the park up in the hills where our job was to check the solar powered electric fence, the water holes and look out for anything remotely resembling poaching activities. This is a major problem with rhino being shot just for their horn; also subsistence poaching which goes to supply the game meat trade, the use of snares is prevalent. That day we also undertook a herd count. Quite sophisticated handheld technology is used to enter the information whilst in the field which is then down loaded on return to the office. Once again we had the obligatory one and half hour lunch/siesta under the shade of the thorn bushes.
That evening we met the rest of the team including researchers, office workers and rangers from other sections. This was over the weekly Braii (BBQ). One researcher is involved in the study of ticks whilst the others are looking into elephants and the water buffalo.
With the last day of the working week (a strange feeling to be back at work) we had great excitement as we went off to feed the lions. Currently there are 4 mature lions (2 male) contained in a stockade or boma. They will be released once some fencing is completed. Our job was to stand in the back of the Ute and hurl great slabs of meat into the enclosure; this also included the head of a Kudu which went whirling off into the undergrowth! The highlight was saving a large tortoise which had bumbled into the fence, tortoises cannot reverse so they just keep pressing ahead and unfortunately die in the process getting caught up in the trip wire at the base of the fence. The electric fence surrounds the entire park and is essential for keeping the animals in and the farm animals out. The last part of the day was.....litter collection.

Garden Route - Cape Town to PE Oct 29 to Nov 1

After two days at River Song we made our farewells and drove the 260k to Oudtshoorn where we had booked a night in a B+B. Much to Nikki’s delight the owner had 3 Jack Russell puppies but only 12 days old so they looked like baby rats. The next day we visited an Ostrich farm. Oudtshoorn relies on ostrich farming for much of its income and jobs. Interesting little known facts about ostrich:
- It takes 1.5 hours to hard boil an ostrich egg.
- An ostrich will eat one and a half kilos of stones each day (to help grind up it food).
- One ostrich egg is equivalent to 24 hen eggs.
We each rode on the back of an ostrich which was hilarious- it ran off at high speed with us clinging onto its wings for dear life, before we climbed on it they put a hood over its head with only its beak poking out a very funny sight. We then went down some huge limestone caves at Kango.
The following day we drove the world famous Garden Route which follows the sea, small coastal communities interspersed with amazing scenery of forests, hills, backdropped with granite mountains. We stayed a couple of days in Storms River ziplining through the forest canopy in one of the many biomes in that area. The longest single line was 91 metres and over 20m above the ground, we felt like giant birds whizzing through the foliage. We also did 2 hikes one through the forest and the other being a small part of The Otter Trail basically clambering over the rocks close to the crashing waves of the Indian ocean.
We arrived in Port Elizabeth early evening and were delighted to see Elize our good friend from Nakheel and her son Eugene. Again Nikki was very happy to see .....Yes a Jack Russell puppy (Cindy) this time 9 weeks old so lots of cuddly fun. Elize kindly put us up for the night.

Cape Town Oct 13 to 20

We were greeted in Cape Town with a torrential rainstorm, our first rain for months.
We enjoyed the superb hospitality of Suzie and Terry staying in their Century City Penthouse. The following day went and had breakfast on the coast and saw my first viewing of Table Mountain. Little knowing that in a couple of days I would be hiking up to the top in 32c heat. We reacquainted ourselves with the delights of modern living viz walking endlessly around the biggest shopping centre in Cape Town, trying to buy a Sim card, waiting for ages in a traffic jams, losing a credit card in the ATM and shopping in Woolworths. Life was a lot less stressful in the Namibian desert when you only had to concern yourself with scorpions and snakes..
During our week we managed to see a lot, Nikki was very familiar with Cape Town and its surroundings so together with Suzie and Terry she put together a comprehensive program. Climbing Table Mountain,walking to the edge of The Cape of Good Hope, and visiting the Winelands are must dos for any first time visitor. CT has the spectacle of Sydney and the weather of Melbourne .Without doubt it is a place to see and if one can adapt to the security issue it would be a great place to live.
Suzie and Terry really looked after us and shared all their favourite places such as World of Birds in Hout Bay, SeaPoint, and lunch of oysters and Lobsters at Waterfront, thank you.
Whale watching at Harmanos just down the coast was rewarding as we were fortunate to see at least a dozen frolicking and cavorting, their huge V tales obligingly stationary for the zoom lense.
Many months ago in Dubai our Danish friends Peter and Eva painted an almost unbelievable picture of their home in South Africa....its 45 minutes from Cape Town, it is located in a private nature reserve, the house is built on the beach, you can see whales and dolphins whilst lying in bed, the reserve has 24 hour security,it is close to some great vinyards.....AND....you can borrow it whenever you like!!! Well you know those Danes did not exaggerate one bit. They only forgot to tell how the house was inside...beautifully furnished with some wonderful paintings. We had a terrific week and saw baby seals (close enough to touch), whales and dolphins. I think we encountered one other person on the miles and miles of white sand beach in the whole week.
As luck would have it Suzie and Terry were invited to a wedding just up the coast and much to our excitement we were invited as well ( I love weddings). It was unusual for several reasons, the groom was in his 70’s the bride was 35, it was his 4th marriage, her first. The ceremony and celebrations were held on the beach, dress code was shorts and T shirt, and the weather was great which helped us to eat our way through the 10 course meal. It took days to recover.
We sadly left Jakkalsfontein on 27 October as we drove out of the main gate raindrops fell on the windscreen, the first since we arrived. We drove through some beautiful country on our way to River Song. We passed through ....... and ...... and ...... we arrived up in the ...... late afternoon to be welcomed by Suzie who migrates from CT to her hideaway in River Song for 4 months of the year. The little log cabin is tucked away on a hillside screened by bourganvillia and bottlebrush, her neighbours are the birds with Sunbirds dominating the alien bottlebrush the only sounds are nature, in the evenings it is the crackle and hiss of the log fire. We were treated like royalty by Suzie with scrumptious curries and stirfries and breakfasts al fresco on the terrace.

Namib Naukluft – Oct 10 to 12

The day after the end of EHRA we hurried off to Avis to pick-up our VW Chico - only it turned out to be a Toyota Yaris – thankfully with air conditioning. Southern Africa happens to be one of the few places where they are still manufacturing the “old VW Golf” – just as they continued to manufacture the VW Beetle in Mexico – it is everyone’s every day run-around.
Keen to get out of Swakop, where we really had spent enough time already, however pleasantly safe and German the place is, we headed off on our Namibian self-drive weekend to explore the Namib Naukluft Park and go and visit the highest and apparently some of the most stunning sand dunes and dry pans in the world – Sossusvlei – a large ephemeral pan surrounded by the dune sea (as it is known).
The trip to Solitaire, where we were to stay for the next two nights, was 240kms in distance, only 50kms of which was on tarmac road – the rest on quite poor gravel. When we started off we could have been in the middle of the UAE, less the expensive cars, with flat sand and power lines all around us and the rather grey sky and sand just merged into one. Eventually we spotted a hill in the distance and the landscape broke out into beautiful desolate undulations with long, yellow dry grass. On it went, up and down through river valleys and over the odd canyon. As we could barely go faster than 80km/hr on the road we arrived in Solitaire at around 4pm. Solitaire consists off a petrol station, a lodge, a small grocery shop and a bakery apparently renowned for its apple pie – and not just because it is the only bakery! It is delicious.
We were staying at a Guest Farm down the road where we were entertained by all sorts of small animals – meerkats, ducks, guinea fowl, guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens and springbok – the bokkies were vey cute when dancing over the meadows. Our hosts, Simone and Walter, were very friendly and we were treated to a delicious home cooked dinner of springbok stroganoff before hurrying off to bed in preparation for a long drive and long day at the dunes.
9 hours and 140kms later, at around 6.45am, we were at the gates of Sesriem - Sossusvlei National Park - still no change in scenery (or road surface!). A handful of Namibian dollars later we were in the park and, for the first time in 380kms, on a tarmac road. We sped to the dunes, parked our car and headed off for a hike to the dunes. The thirsty soil was cracked with the heat and the trees were dry and crackled. It was quite a hard hike through the soft sand and over some small dunes until we got onto the harder stuff.
The sand on the large dunes was a stunning red, changing constantly dependent on the sunlight. They were filled with emptiness but so evocative. These dunes are known as “dynamic” which means that they shift with the wind and their shapes are constantly changing. They are as high as 300m but when climbing up it seems at least double that height given that it really is a case of two steps forward, one step back. We really were not so sure whether or not we had bitten off more than we could chew until we were suddenly at the top, looking down onto another cracked dry pan (these are rarely filled with water). Treated to views of miles and miles of more dunes, we ate our packed breakfast watching some German tourists struggling up the other side! We merrily walked 500m or so across the top watching people body surf down – somewhat unsuccessfully. Eventually we headed back as it started getting hot to reach Solitaire 2 hours later for a well deserved rest before yet another delicious springbok dinner. Game spot of the day – a regal gemsbok (oryx) in the middle of the National Park – we also disturbed a desert hare on our hike.
The following morning we headed off early for our long drive back to Walvis Bay from where we were to fly to Cape Town. Along route we spotted bat-eared foxes, ostrich and jackals...and as it was such a clear day we did Sossusvlei all over again from the air!