Karoo and the Garden Route. April 2024
4. Addo Elephant National Park.
Another of our favourite Parks!
The Addo Elephant National Park (AENP) was proclaimed in 1931 to protect the remaining Addo elephants. The great herds of elephant and other animal species had been all but decimated by hunters over the 1700s and 1800s and then by farmers who began to colonise the area and didn't want elephants competing for water and eating their crops.
In 1954, Graham Armstrong (the park manager at the time) developed an elephant-proof fence constructed using tram rails and lift cables and an area of 2 270 hectares was fenced in. There were 22 elephant in the park at the time. This Armstrong fence, named after its developer, is still used around the park today.
Although the park was originally proclaimed to protect a single species, priorities have now changed to conserve the rich biological diversity found in the area. There are now over 600 elephants in the Park as well as many other animals.
We stayed for a couple of nights in adjoining comfortable chalets which had a great view. There was a waterhole in the distance and we often saw animals wandering down to have a drink.
We had some wonderful sightings on all our drives in the Park.
We kept to the northern section of the Park on our drives (as we did last year) as that's where there are waterholes - and therefore elephants!
The elephants in Addo are very used to vehicles so close-up encounters often happen, however we are well aware of the risks and always avoid getting between female elephants and their babies and always check out bulls to make sure they are not in musth, when they can become very aggressive.
Harpoor dam always had plenty of elephants in and around the waterhole.
Having parked up near a waterhole it's not unusual for elephants to cross right in front or behind your vehicle - sometimes they suddenly appear right next to you without you realizing they are so close!
Elephants youngsters are always fun to watch.
Some of the other animals we saw included warthog, hyena, kudu, zebra and buffalo. At one of the dams we saw a heron sucessfully catch a large fish.
On the morning we left we drove south through the Park, exiting just north of Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). We stopped at one waterhole where there were several warthogs and 3 buffalo. As we watched we noticed a singe bull elephant in the distance so waited to see what would happen. Most of the warthogs and a couple of the buffalo disappeared but the others stayed and weren't bothered by the elephant.
Last updated: July 2024