Sundowner drive

On our last evening at Addo we went on the sundowner game drive where we stop, get off the truck which is normally never allowed and have some drinks and snacks.

I got some my best shots of the antelope in the park on this drive.

Red Heartbeast

Kudu bull

Black backed jackal 

Eland

At the site where we were planning to have our snacks we can across Mel and Gibson again

We had to chose another site for our drinks and snacks or we might become a lion snack.

A view of the park at sundown from the hilltop where Mel and Gibson were sleeping.

Setting up for drinks and snacks and keeping a watchful eye for lion party crashers.

Headman our sundowner driver and guide.

The sun sets on our last night at Addo. An unforgettable experience.

Our last day at Addo

Our last day at the Addo Elephant Park consisted of a walk along the Discovery Path which is inside the fence for the Main Camp and Sheila was able for the first time get up close to some of the plants we have been seeing on our drives. We also got a close up view of the Armstrong fence that surrounds the park and the main camp.

The Armstrong fence was invented by a fellow named Armstrong to keep the elephants in the park and not raiding farmers fields. It was originally made from tramway rails ripped up in J'berg and Cape Town and used elevator cables donated by Otis.

After the walk we drove to Jack's Picnic Site where we had our lunch. We were visited by a number of birds including the one below which we saw many times siting on the top of bushes.

We came across this young male taking a bath.

The main event of this day was observing elephant behaviour.

He quickly left the water hole when this larger male approached aggressively.

At a different waterhole we watched this small group run past us apparently in some alarm.

On our way back to camp we came across this mother elephant and her calf who was nursing at the time of our arrival but the calf stopped before we could get our cameras out.

The mother elephant moved on to a mud wallow where she proceeded to throw mud up onto herself  with her trunk

Finally on the sundowner drive which will be the topic of the next blog post we came upon a herd of elephants with a big bull elephant in musht ?sp. that is sexually aroused. In the photo below he is off to check out which of his females might be receptive to his advances.

Beginning in Plett

We drove most of the day from Cape Town with a slight detour to Montagu where we had a delicious lunch of bobotie. We had thought to drive along the R62 through the desert or Karro but our GPS told us it would take too long so we adjusted and took the shore motorway to Plett. We had a wonderful dinner at The Fat Fish of local fish. The next morning we walked to the beach which was very close to our guesthouse (Anlin Beach House)

Robberg Nature Reserve as seen from Robberg Beach

Robberg Beach

Anlin Beach House, our terrace is on the right

Load DSC 0137, 0136 and 0132

We left after a breakfast of homemade croissants and muesli for Addo. We passed the Storms River Gorge.

We arrived at Addo mid-afternoon through the southern gate and drove through the park to the Main Rest Camp in the northern part of the park

Load 0157

Our first animal was the warthog then a zebra and our first elephant

Apparently there is an over population of warthogs. They brought in lions who are doing a good job on controlling the warthogs 

The lions don't like zebra unfortunately

There are elephants everywhere, this is the first one we saw.

Load 0159 0167 0174

We also saw along the road a family of kudus, a heron and Cape buffalo.

Heron

Cape buffalo

kudu

0182, 0186, 0182

We arrived at the rest camp and the hillside we can view from our rondeval was full of elephants.

0197 0198

If you look closely this lion is missing a canine tooth which will make it more difficult for him to kill his prey.

The next morning we took the sunrise game drive leaving at 6 am before the sun came up. Ryan (Sheila thinks his name was Brian) found us a pair of male lions

0233 0239

Later we encountered a herd of elephants in the bush where they gather to keep warm overnight. There was a baby elephant amongst them but the adults seemed to want to protect it from being photographed.

0302

Baby elephant is to the right of the larger elephant

Later one of the passengers saw a family of yellow mongoose and several ostriches with zebra

0318 0326

0331

Ryan (Brian) was both our guide and driver in an open truck. He used a spotlight to spot wildlife, looking for the reflection from the back of their eyes. His spotlight is rated at 600 lumens.

Table Mountain

The conference finished a bit early so we were able to rush and go up Table Mountain before the last car ascended. The cable car had been closed due to strong winds most of the week. We went with Andrus Meiner who works for the European Union Environment Agency in Copenhagen.

The mountain top is over 1000 m above sea level and the cable car starts about half way up. The floor rotates so everyone gets a 360 degree view on the way up or down.

This is a view of the eastern end of Table Mountain with the upper cable car station on top of the second point from the right.

A view from the cable car looking down.

A view from the cable car looking up

The cable car system was designed in Switzerland.

This little animal is a dossie, it is related to the elephant. There is a display of the two skeletons here at Addo.

0024 0027 0031 0089

From the top there are marvellous views and it was a warm sunny day without too much wind. You could see for miles although there was some haze in the northerly direction obscuring the Cape fold mountains in the distance. The pictures are of along the coast towards the Cape of Good Hope, of the other mountains to the left and right of Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head, the football stadium built for the World Cup and Table Bay.

The view towards Cape of Good Hope which is around to the left and not visible.

Devil's Peak with the cape fold mountains in the background.

Lion's Head

The football stadium built for the World Cup

Table Bay

0036 0071 0090 0082 0092

This was our last night in Cape Town and we watched the sunset on Cape Town from the lower cable car station.

0101

A day at the Cape

21 April 2015

Today I was involved in the CoastGIS workshops but Sheila went to the Cape of Good Hope.

She travelled on a tour bus down the west coast of the Cape Peninsula to the Cape and back up the east coast. Down the west coast are some beautiful beaches like the one below.

They have been having real problems with forest / grass fires which have denuded the landscape and causes erosion since the 'fynbo' vegetation stabilizes the terrain. It does however rejuvenate the landscape since some of the plants need fire to reproduce. 

Below is Sheila and the Cape of Good Hope. The picture below that she thinks is also the Cape from a distance.

At the Cape were some baboons. One of them stole the baquette sandwich of one of the tour participants.

Also at the Cape was this antelope, species unknown to us.

At Simons Town is a sanctuary for African penguins. These are wild penguins but protected. Sheila took a lot of pictures of them but the one below is one of the best.

Finally, one her way back to Cape Town they stopped at the botanical gardens. Below is a picture of the proteas in the garden. The King Protea is the national flower.

Tonight was the opening reception of the CoastGIS conference. I met one of the organizers who promises to draw a special route for us to drive along the coast when we leave here on Saturday. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Sheila plans a local day and I will be involved in the conference sessions. On Thursday is the field trip to Table Mountain and Table Bay and the gala dinner. Stay tuned!