Our beautiful Tiger dog is no longer with us as of today. He has been unwell for just a few days after spending a wonderful holiday with my mum who has loved him and looked after him so well while we have been away. It has been a day of sadness and tears for the loss of a very special part of our family.
We were lucky to be able to spend the day close together while we drove around the Addo Elephant Park. Tears were intermingled with laughs and enjoyment of the animals. We left a big pile of luggage locked in our sausage tent and spent the whole day driving around enjoying the never ending opportunities to see elephants. We sat at the edge of a dam for ages and watched herd after herd come running (literally running) down the hill for a drink and in some cases a swim too… Or at least some mud throwing. You then drive around the corner to another dam or mud bath and see another massive group of them. At one dam we saw a heap of them swimming and climbing on top of each other in the water. This was some of the best elephant viewing we have had in Africa. Apart from elephant we saw buffalo, zebra, baboons, monkeys, warthog, jackal, kudu, eland, red hartebeest, ostrich, lions, meerkats, masses of tortoises and oh, did I say elephants!!! The tortoises were particularly amusing and we watched a couple sprinting across an open plain, one appeared to be chasing the other. The meerkats too, were running flat out across the grass with their tails in the air. We also saw one perched right on top of this bush / tree playing lookout while the others dug about under the tree.
The bush and the views were also stunning and in some places there were masses of flowers, lots of yellow, some pink, purple, and blue. The bush was quite thick and tall and we probably drove past a mass of other animals. When you sit at the camp and watch the hill and waterhole, you see all sorts popping in and out of the bushes.
In the evening we sat and watched some comings and goings from the lookout platform and after some dinner we headed back to the tent and were lucky enough to see a rhinoceros coming down the hill for a drink. The camp has low lighting over the waterhole and so we could see quite well even though it was dark.