Addo Elephant National Park

16th to 21st April 2017

This was the start of our homeward journey from Sedgefield.

As you can see from the map, Addo includes seven distinct areas: Darlington, Kabouga, Zuurberg, Nyathi, Addo Main Camp, Colchester and Woody Cape. Each are in fact separate areas. Some of which you have to book accommodation in it in order to visit – Darlington and Nyathi. We visited Kabouga and Zuurberg while staying in Addo Main Camp.

Kabouga is in the high mountains. The road is recommended for 4×4 or high clearance vehicles. The road follows a valley between mountains. There is a wild camp there – you need to take everything including water and a porta potty if you want to stay there. We did not see much game nor birds in Kabouga and would be unlikely to visit it again.

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Our one interesting experience was coming round a corner to see a red-headed Bushpig in the middle of the road. It quickly scampered into the bush so no photos. Red-headed as it had obviously just had a bloody meal.

Zuurberg is situated at the top of another closeby mountain. A pretty drive up. However on arrival we discovered there were no tracks to drive but it did have mountain trails. We were not properly equipped to go trekking. It was bitterly cold and windy.

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The camp site we had was hedged in so nicely private, level and partly shady.

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Early morning the birds would pass through our campsite looking for scraps from the previous evening. They ranged from Laughing Doves, Red-winged Starlings, Francolins, Terrestial Brownbulls, a Southern Tchagra, a pair of Black-headed Orioles and even an inquisitive pair of Brown-hooded Kingfishers.

Addo Main Camp and Colchester may be two separate areas but they are effectively one large area. This is the main game viewing area. The north section of this area has open grassland but the majority of the roads are between thick spekboom scrub making it difficult to see into the bush. The south – Colchester – has views of the sea.

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Jack’s Picnic site was an interesting area. So who was Jack?

Some of the action at Jack’s were the visiting birds while we had tea.

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The few species of animals that we saw were mainly Elephant and Burchell’s Zebra with an occasional Warthog.

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There was a waterhole which we frequented – despite the cold drizzly days – which had a reasonable variety of waterbirds. African Black Duck, a large number of White-breasted Cormorants, South African Shelducks, Blacksmith Lapwings, African Spoonbills and a Grey Heron. There was always activity at this waterhole – especially brought about by a bedraggled juvenile African Fish-Eagle.

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And here are some of the other birds photoed during our stay.

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We had booked to stay for five nights. In fact, for us, 2 or 3 nights would have been plenty. Although we had several nice bird sightings we are reluctant to return unless it is at a different time of the year.

On one of the days at Addo we heard that the Sooty Gull had appeared at Kabeljous, Jeffreys Bay. We went hoping to be lucky this time. Alas not to be.

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Mountain Zebra National Park

21st to 25th April 2021

From Addo we headed north to Mountain Zebra National Park. The campsite was fairly full so we ended placing our Caracal on a gentle slope to give us some privacy from neighbours and a view to enjoy.

Mountain Zebra is one of the National Parks we enjoy the most. It is scenic and has a variety of bird and animal species difficult to find elsewhere – Cape Mountain Zebras, Bat-eared Foxes, Red-winged Francolin, Black Harrier to name a few.

The camp is in a valley below the high mountain grasslands. It has four 4×4 only routes each with their own degree of difficulty. We tried one -Juriesdam 4×4 Trail- and having gone up 100 metres we had no choice but to continue.

Slow going to the top, not a great deal of animals nor birdlife. Having said that we did encounter a Ludwig’s Bustard in the distance.

The scenery at Mountain Zebra is awesome, getting to the top, the high grasslands the dams.

After the first day there we managed to extend our stay by another day- we had originally only been able to book 3 nights.

We had a couple of creepy experiences – spiders and a bark.

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Then there was an unbelievably large Gum tree.

We were fortunate to see Bat-eared Foxes on 2 occasions.

We saw Eland and one with several Red-billed Oxpeckers on its back – most unexpected.

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The Cape Mountain Zebra were everywhere and the young looking so cute.

Here are some of the other animals photoed.

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Then there were the birds.

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Our next destination was Balloch Cottages close to Barkly East near the southern Lesotho border. To be reported in Part 3 of this series.

Paul and Sally Bartho