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Write a User ReviewAddo, where elephants and dung beetles thrive
As the name suggests, Addo Elephant National Park offers great elephant viewing. This is an understatement though; it offers some of the best elephant viewing in Africa. The sheer number of them is impressive (about 600 and growing) but what’s really exciting is how close they come. Being used to less habituated elephants elsewhere, I’ve had at least one scary moment when a big bull casually brushed past my car. There is lots of other wildlife as well; particularly conspicuous are the greater kudu bulls with their impressive spiraling horns. Cape buffalo, Burchell’s zebra, red hartebeest and eland are often seen as well. Due to the thick vegetation, predator sightings are hit-and-miss but it’s worth heading out early to increase your chances of seeing lion and spotted hyena on the move. Although notoriously shy, the park isn’t bad for black rhino either. And then of course there are the flightless dung beetles, quite rightly almost as celebrated in Addo as the elephants whose dung they roll.
Elephants and more elephants in Addo
Addo is also a very accessible park, situated near Port Elizabeth and along the popular Garden Route. Inside the park there are plenty of tar roads and you can self-drive your way around. It’s a popular family choice and can get busy along the main thoroughfares, but it’s big enough that you can generally escape the crowds where necessary.
I’ve been lucky enough to stay at the secluded Gorah Elephant Camp, which sits on its own private concession of Addo and has beautiful views across the green rolling hills that characterize this park. But I’ve also enjoyed
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staying at the more basic South African National Parks camp by the main entrance, and at excellent accommodations just outside the park, where you’ll often get more privacy and better value for money.Expanding Addo
Most visitors mistakenly concentrate all their time in the main game-viewing area, which is choc-a-bloc full of elephants and home to the rest of the Big Five. The elephant sightings are superb and I’ve seen a couple of lion kills here too, but the area lacks a sense of wilderness and starts to feel very small and contained after a couple of days of exploring. As such, I would recommend all visitors escape into the quieter Zuurberg section of the park, or take a walk along the Alexandria hiking trail for a chance to forget the people and rediscover the wilderness vibe.
With plans well-underway to expand Addo into a 360,000 hectare mega-park including a large marine component,
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penguins, sharks and whales will soon be added to Addo’s already impressive species list. Tourism infrastructure is currently being developed in the coastal region, which will allow for southern right whale and great white shark viewing opportunities. So, when you combine these marine mammals with the traditional Big Five already found in the park, Addo will shortly be the first conservation area in the world to proudly boast a Magnificent Seven safari option.A great day/overnight trip for those doing the Eastern Cape
The best thing about Addo is that it’s so accessible – you can fit in a real safari experience while road-tripping between the beaches of Jeffrey’s Bay and the scenic beauty of the Wild Coast. It’s well worth the detour if you’re not going to be safari-ing anywhere else or if, like me, you’re an elephant fanatic whose idea of heaven is to park up by a waterhole and watch the herds come and go for hours on end. The eles are the main attraction, although the park has lions, hyenas and myriad varieties of antelope too.
The top-priced self-catering accommodation here is quite gorgeous for a special occasion, and I loved the chance to eat my picnic at the floodlit waterhole within the campground, which also has an underground hide. Avoid weekends and school holidays, when lots of families make the campgrounds rather noisy and the roads crowded.