Port Elizabeth and Addo Elephant Park

Sunday Afternoon
Arrived in Port Elizabeth after an uneventful flight.  A brief travel took us directly to our hotel right on the beach and this is the site that greeted us.  This is the first time seeing the Indian Ocean and while I like to check it off on my "Places I've visited list", it really isn't that much different from the other ocean shores. The coastal region is very much like other coastal regions with container ship yards, tankers and other assorted ocean going vessels.

Monday…more animal sightings.  It’s for sure that I’ll never want to see these beautiful creatures in a zoo again.  Today was our trip to Addo Elephant Park that was started as a national park with just 15 elephants in 1931.  There has been a long lasting battle between the elephants and the farmers.  Unable to contain the elephants they broke into farm fields and we have seen what a small herd of elephants  can do to trees.  By 1954 they finally found a way to safely contain the elephants so their number grew to 265 in 1998.  Today more than 500 elephants roam the 1,127 sq mile park.  They are a wonder to see in their natural habitat.

A LARGE watering hole but we didn't see a multitude of
animals gathering here.

The proximity to the Indian Ocean gives a different climate to the area.  No long did we see giraffes among the low growing scrub but virtually everything else was the same.  Instead of white rhino which are grazers, this park has the severely endangered black rhinos which eat on the thorny scrub.  We saw no rhinos as they may possible have been moved to a more protected area.  Poaching is still a VERY serious problem here.

Part of the original fence to keep the elephants enclosed.
Now everything is electrified.

 Other animals we spotted that we had not seen before were the leopard tortoise, red hartebeest, and the dung beetle.  These beetles are even protected in the park as they are a very important part of the life cycle.  They are huge by beetle standards being about 1.5 long.  Signs posted at the entrance let us know that they have the right of way.

 

Red Hartebeest