The Addo Elephant Park consists of 51,000 hectares of bush country and is home to over 300 elephants that have been bred from the few that remained after the herd was almost wiped out by a hired game hunter Major P J Pretorius in the 1920s. He was hired by local ranchers to protect their cattle. Although it belongs to the same species as the African Elephant the reddish Addo Elephant is smaller with more rounded ears and the females generally have no tusks.
A visit to this park was to prove the main attraction of Port Elizabeth for me. We had been told anyway that walking in central Port Elizabeth was not advised and the shuttle bus went, as I found later in the afternoon on returning from the park, to a ghastly Boardwalk Entertainment Complex along the style of the purpose cruise ports built by Carnival e.g. Cozumel (Mexico) and Grand Turks & Caicos’ (Caribbean). The Boardwalk Complex surrounded the inevitable casino with shops selling goods at 3 times the price of anywhere else and the big restaurant chains. So sanitised and commercialised was this place that it didn’t warrant any photos and I spent less then 20 minutes taking the returning shuttle back to the ship.
The Addo Park, however, was a different matter and a chance to see herds of elephant in a near wild environment. You will recall that in Namibia I had only seen lone bull elephants and not the herds of females led by the all-important ‘Matriarch’. Today I saw several herds and was able to see the Matriarch in action dealing with some naughty teenagers who were just having a great time in the water at one of the Waterholes.
Although we did see other wildlife I’m going to concentrate in a short series of postings on Addo on the elephants.
The photo is of a group of females – and note only one has tusks – enjoying a drink and a mud bath at one of the waterholes.
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