Addo Elephant Back Safaris

This past weekend we went on a trip to Addo Elephant Back Safaris in the Zuurberg Mountains. I took some great photos of elephants, spiders, mountains and all kind of things. Today I want to show a bit of what we did there and over the next couple of days I’ll show off some of my other photos.
On the day of our arrival we took it easy and only went on a guided walk through the reserve. The next morning was the big event. We met the three elephants and their handlers at the reception area and the damselfly and I got to ride on Mukwa. Now we all know elephants are big, but you don’t really know how big until you actually sat on one. It is a long way down. The ride took us through the bush and was quite hard on our posteriors, as you sit bareback and not on a saddle or blanket.
After getting off again we got to follow the elephants through the bush and observe their natural behaviour. Although the riding bit is the highlight of the program, my favorite part was walking with them. It gives you lots of unique photographs at angles that you can’t get from a vehicle. They also gave us ample opportunity to pose with the elephants for pics as well.

After the walk we went back to the restaurant for breakfast. The restaurant overlooks the main waterhole where the elephants come and drink which gave us even more photo opportunities.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Steffi

    How cool!Elepants riding!

  2. Grace

    Very brave to climb so high up and ride an elephant’s back. What is there to hold on to?I’d like to know what time the elephant ride takes place? You mention going for breakfast afterwards. What was on the menu?

  3. Firefly

    Hi Grace. on the elephant the you get onto a platform with a “walk through” to get on. The handler sits in front. If there are two people riding with him, the first person (the one in the middle) put their arms around his body and the back person in turn puts their arms past the middle person and hold onto the handler’s army belt.The ride started just after 08h00. The whole program of riding, walking, touching, watching and feeding takes about two hours, so breakfast was at 10h00 and consisted of the usual bacon, eggs and all the trimmings.Thanks for the visit and comment. Questions are always welcome.

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