An Accidental Addo TT

[PJL]

Hey everyone

We spent a few nights in Addo before Christmas and I had only planned on adding a few pics to the regular Addo Outings thread, but the park delivered once again so I figured I couldn't not do a short TT

This trip was our family plus my parents who were over in SA visiting. They had a nice chalet with a view whilst we camped as usual. We didn't make an early start, so by the time we hit the park it was already in the high 30s, and as we travelled through the park our car registered as high as 47 degrees... pitching a tent was going to be a hot affair

Our first sightings of game only came in the open areas around Peasland. This ostrich was literally panting due to the heat



Lion had supposedly been seen near the Gorah Camp entrance but we couldn't find any sign of them. At Hapoor it felt like the entire park population of elephants had arrived!!





Amazingly despite the heat and mass of elephants there were a bunch of park workers out on foot at the back of the waterhole putting up an electric fence. I found out later from one of the rangers that it was to prevent the elephants from breaking the back of the dam and emptying the waterhole... they simply can't afford that to happen during this continued drought period.

We continued up to camp and I braved the heat to pitch our trailer tent whilst the others ducked off to the pool. They weren't the only ones seeking refreshment at the waterhole either




TBC

[harrys]

[Richprins]

Excellent, Peej!

Didn't know it could get that hot at your place?

Does it cool down at night though?

[Flutterby]

That was hot!!

Looking forward to more!

[PJL]

Thanks for hopping onto this TT Harry, RP & Flutts

Didn't know it could get that hot at your place?

Does it cool down at night though?

Out near Addo has recorded some of the hottest temps in SA over the years... in fact the hottest recorded temperature in SA was near Kirkwood which is down the road from Addo

Strangely the temperature started dropping around midday onwards, but we were hit with some gusty wind in the afternoon which wasn't so pleasant. Grandpa was keen to swing past Rooidam to see if there were any hyena around and along the road we found a couple of angulate tortoises having a scrap



https://youtu.be/zXni21cQcd4

Rooidam was quiet apart from a couple of kudu milling around in the distance so we continued on along the dirt road towards Hapoor. About half way along we found a car reversing from a small bunch of elephant who were coming out onto the road. Much to the car's occupants we went past and turned the engine off to enjoy the walk-past. The kids had a good chuckle when they saw the car continuing to reverse despite seeing how chilled the ellies were with us.

https://youtu.be/5CplUDnTxT0

What we thought initially to be a small herd turned out to be loads of elephant and more and more kept coming out the bush and right past us which was great



Back at Hapoor the poor zebra were still waiting patiently for a turn to drink whilst the elephant continued to occupy the waterhole







It was a continuing story of elephant as we trundled south past spekboom, although we did get lucky with a nice sighting of a black-shouldered kite quite close to the road







TBC

[Lisbeth]

I cannot see the second pic

Great video of the tortoises fighting over the right of way The noise is the wind, not the tortoises I presume

[Richprins]

Aha! Berg winds - we had them in Bergville too, ironically!

Very pretty tortoises!

And nice orderly elephant - ours just scatter and charge when they get near the water!

[Pumbaa]

Fantastic shots, PJL,

as always but that ellie shots are indeed outstanding

[Peter Betts]

Yip Sundays River Valley is one of the hottest places in SA ..thats why its a great Citrus area..My Kirkwood Citrus Clients have it really hot at times

[Flutterby]

Love the ellies walking past in single file!!