addo elephant park is the third largest national park in south africa after the kruger and the
kgalagadi it's a thousand six hundred and forty square kilometers with plans to expand it further
it's located not far from port elizabeth or Gqeberha as it's now called so it's one of the
more accessible national parks in the country and gets quite busy especially over weekends
although addo is a big five park with lion leopard elephant rhino and buffalo the
main attraction is definitely the elephant the park was created in 1931 to protect the eleven
remaining wild elephants that had been almost hunted to extinction
it's been constantly expanded since then and nowadays there are over 600 elephants in the park
they're descended from the original elephants that roamed the area although
new blood has been introduced by bringing bulls from the kruger
we spent one night at the main rest camp in a forest chalet it's actually really excellent
there's a well-provisioned shop everything you need there's a cattle barron restaurant
and there's a lot of different options for accommodation
i highly recommend going to the ulwazi interpretive center where you'll learn all about the elephants
the history of the park and lots more the huge full-size head that hangs on the wall
belonged to an elephant called hapoor or nicked ear he was the dominant bull in the
park for 24 years until he died in 1968. it's believed that the nick was caused by
hunter's bullet and hapoor retained a deep hatred of humans for the rest of his life
so much so that game rangers and staff would head for the closest gate when he showed up
the pool looks really nice unfortunately was a
bit too cold to swim but i can imagine on a hot day it would be very welcome
we stayed the night in the timber forest cabins which are really really comfortable got everything
you need although there is a communal kitchen and they're really really reasonably priced as well
there are some paved roads in the park mostly around the main rest camp
for the most part though they are gravel and mostly pretty good
we're at jack's picnic site at the moment which is named after a black rhino called
jack who used to sun himself on the grassy area behind me jack was introduced to the
park in 1961 at about five years of age and lived to be 30 which is quite a good age for a
rhino in the wild you can get out of your car here there are bright spots picnic spots and
ablutions it's one of the few there are not many picnic areas in the in the reserve
you can get out of your car at a couple of the viewpoints as well with caution obviously
addo is not one continuous game reserve like the kruger or the kgalagadi
it's split into three main parts the south and the central part which are
so to say continuous in other words the animals have freedom to roam between them but the northern
part which is somewhat more mountainous is separated from the rest by a regional road and
it's fenced off so the animals in the north are not able to travel to the south nyathi rest camp is
in this northern section we spent two nights there and what an absolute pleasure it's in a completely
different class and while it is more expensive than other rest camps it's not outrageously so
sometimes you find a hidden gem and where we are right now is nyathi rest camp and it meets that
criteria in every way you can go to a premium game lodge and pay premium prices and for sure you'll
get luxury but yeah you're getting the luxury but you've got your own schedule you not obliged to
eat at a certain time or go on a game drive at a certain time you're entirely free to make your own
meals as a self-catering there's a braai there you go and you've got all the freedom of that
but you've got the luxury accommodation there's everything you need and absolutely first class
not to take away from addo main rest camp for the other camps
in the reserve this nyatih really is in a class of its own it's absolutely unique
we are leaving eddo this morning at matyholweni gate some people just call it colchester gate so it's
the southernmost gate we've traveled from the far north of the park at nyathi and it's
taken about two and a half hours so that's our visit to addo done and we saw a lot of elephants
a lot of kudu a lot of wartog not much else we heard lions last night but we didn't see any thank
you so much for watching please like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video i'll catch you next time