We had a fairly comfortable night in our tent and it was not as cold as granny’s cottage in Colesburg! We did another game drive on the way out of Mountain Zebra and made a vow to come back and do the cheetah tracking activity next time.
We headed further south towards the coast on the N10 and the scenery improved again. It was only a couple of hours before we arrived at the small town of Colchester. We decided to base ourselves here for a few days as it is only 5 minutes from the southern entrance to Addo Elephant National Park. As it turns out, even though the busy N2 dissects Colchester, it is actually in a lovely place on the Sundays River and there are huge sand dunes on the far bank which hides a lot of wildlife.
We had booked into Nightjar guest house which is run by a lovely couple, Peter and Juanne. It is right on the river and we again had our own, kitchen, living room and outside area. Good job we had a kitchen and could be self-sufficient as there are not a lot of eating options in Colchester.
The town is small and peaceful and very safe to wander round. We walked along the river and stocked up in the local Spar. This is actually a large supermarket in SA not a corner shop like in the UK.
The next day we ventured further and walked to the mouth of the river which is located in the Pearson’s Camp so you have to pay a small entrance fee. It was worth it though as the walk through the bush provided great views of the river and the impressive dunes. We also spotted mongoose, bushbuck and a leopard tortoise dashed by at one point.
Addo Elephant National Park
We were at the gate to the national park early in the morning, excited with the thought of seeing some ellies. We entered the park at the quieter southern entrance and we spent the morning driving along the gravel game tracks. We spotted many herds of elephants in this sector but the highlight was watching a pack of jackals feasting on an elephant carcass.
Well we thought that would be the highlight but soon after we spotted a caracal, a cat that looks a bit like a lynx. We had never seen one before and we watched it for ages as it tried to track down a rodent it could hear in the grass. It even walked right in front of the car at one point. A fantastic sighting.
We then moved into the northern sector of the park which has tarred roads and facilities. Also more cars! We stopped for a break at Jack’s picnic spot (named after an old rhino) before continuing with the game drive. We saw elephants at every turn in this area with many crossing the road right in front of us. We popped into the visitors’ centre for our picnic while watching a herd of kudu come down for a drink at the water hole.
We did one more game drive in the afternoon near the dam and saw even bigger herds of elephants. We think we must have seen over 200 in the day. But Addo is much more than just elephants and I’m sure we will be back (I seem to keep saying that!).
