Addo Buffs

My quick trip through Addo last week didn't produce a big amount of elephants as usual.  I did get three separate Cape Buffalo sightings.  When I started working as a tourist guide 18 years ago the Cape Buffalo sightings were very few and far apart.  The Addo buffalo was basically nocturnal due to the hunting of big game that took place a hundred years earlier which lead to the buffalo starting to hide during the day and only coming out…

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Addo landscape

I was invited to the launch of the SPAR Kirkwood Wildsfees at the Addo Elephant National Park main camp yesterday and decided to take the scenic route through the park from Colchester.  Back when I was a tourist guide I used to visit the park as often as 5 or 6 times a week at one stage.  These days I don't get to visit nearly enough and is probably lucky if I get the time to visit once or twice…

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The Jazzy, Boozy, Cheezy Affaire is coming

This morning I got to attend the media launch of the upcoming Jazzy, Boozy, Cheezy Affaire that will be taking place on 26 and 27 September at Africanos Country Estate in Addo.  Anybody who is into wine, cheese, food, jazz, chocolates, flowers or perfume would really enjoy the event as all of that and more will be represented over the weekend.A “sensory spring sensation” will provide a fine feast for all five senses of lovers of laid-back jazz, full-bodied wine…

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Escaping big cats

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCsUkXOapA&w=500&h=400]The big cats from the Eastern Cape and surrounding areas just don't want to be contained.  First a couple of cheetahs suddenly appeared in Addo from who knows where, Then a lion escaped from the Karoo National Park and roamed the surrounding countryside for a couple of weeks before being captured.  Well, things happen in threes.  Nomad, one of the Addo males, has answered the call from a female lion in neighboring Schotia Safaris Private Game Reserve and decided to…

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Addo Elephant National Park – well worth the visit

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwZblA5UwA&w=500&h=400]Addo Elelphant National Park is on Port Elizabeth's doorstep.  Literally.  Matyholweni, or the south gate as most just refer to it, is located at Colchester on the Sundays River, just outside the boundary of Nelson Mandela Bay.  Up to just over a decade or so ago Addo was mostly all about elephants.  Today it is so much more than that.  The Greater Addo Park stretches from the southern Karoo around the Darlington Dam, across the Zuurberg Mountains through the main game area and…

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A braai on the banks of the Sundays River

After a hectic last two weeks I long back to the weekend we spent at Sitrusoewer on the banks of the Sundays River outside Kirkwood recently.  I know its not quite Port Elizabeth and its immediate surrounds, but it's close enough.  Aahhhh, the fire crackling and not a breeze while the sun goes down. *sigh*

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Cruising with Raggy Charters

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXCbY-KcHyY&w=500&h=400]Raggy Charters made Port Elizabeth proud during 2014 by being announced the national winner in the Marine Adventure Category of the Lilizela Tourism Awards.  I found this video posted on YouTube two years or so ago by a visitor who went on one of their cruises to St Croix Island just to give you a bit of a taste on what to expect if you go out with Lloyd and his team.

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Kuzuko view

The Addo Elephant National Park is literally on Port Elizabeth's doorstep and is South Africa's third largest national park.  Strange how some people still think its just about elephants.  These days the park stretch all the way from the coast through the main game viewing area and over the Zuurberg into the Karoo.  One of the private concession lodges in the park is Kuzuko Lodge.  Kuzuko is situated just over the mountain and has a very different fauna and flora…

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Addo roadblock

 Nobody likes a road block, sitting bumper to bumper behind a slow moving object or having to waste time in a stop go situation.  That is unless you get all of these because of elephants in the Addo Elephant National Park.  I had a meeting in Addo and decided to leave two hours early and swing through the park to visit my favorite trunked pachyderms.  Entering the South Gate at Colchester, I decided to do one of the loops in the…

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