Warthog

These guys are so ugly they are beautiful

The Mini vs Maxi Challenge - From the West to the East

Day three of the tour dawned bright and sunny in Tsistikamma. It is one of those paces that is full of charm and beauty, which makes it difficult to leave, especially after the wonderful hospitality of our hosts Chris and Irma.

To get the most of the atmosphere I took an early morning walk before breakfast, through the gardens and the picturesque village, which is set below the majestic mountains of the Tsitsikamma. Imagine waking up to this every morning.



A two and a half drive brought us to the Elephant House at Addo, where we were ushered into an establishment that was full character and old world charm, with its wide verandas and lush well kept gardens.



This is a place to stay if you are looking for peace and quite, good accommodation and excellent food. Our gourmet three course lunch with our host that was superb, to say the least.

The Elephant House is a stone's throw away from the Addo Elephant National Park, which was our next destination. As we were driving on to Stutterheim after the tour, we decided to  do a self drive in the MAXI teams VW Amarok. This vehicle is amazing. It is just as comfortable on the dirt roads as it is on the tar.

The Addo Elephant National Park is one of my favourite places in the Eastern Cape. Whenever I go there I am never disappointed. This time was no exception. I have never seen the Park looking so lush. The countryside is awash with a blaze of colour from all the flowers - it looks like spring has sprung early this year.

With all the vegetation and surface water the animals were not as concentrated as they were in the drier months, but we were not disappointed - here are three of my favourites, elephants, kudu and warthog.

From here our next stop was the Manderson Hotel at Stutterheim, but that is tomorrow's story.

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you all a happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.
Wherever you may be and whatever you are doing take time out to relax and smell the roses.

Warthogs chilling out at the Addo Elephant National Park

Happy New Year

I wish all my blogging friends a really wonderful New Year. May 2009 be a very happy and special year for you and your families.

Caricatures of the bush?

Warthogs can be seen around just about every turn and corner at the Addo Elephant National Park.





They give a new meaning to the word ugly.





In fact they are so ugly they are beautiful.


Those tusks can inflict a nasty wound if they are cornered and go into self defense mode.

Warthog

More from Addo

In my zeal to post my elephant pics I left out all the other game I photographed and have decided to include some of my favorites.

Kudu's - especially the cows are my favorite antelope. That is probably because I reared one on a bottle, after her mother had been snared by poachers on our farm many years ago, in another life. Her name was Thumpy, because when we first started feeding her she would rush at us, give us a good few thumps and then start sucking her bottle. She soon became very tame and was an absolute delight. She was very affectionate and when I called her she would come running for a cuddle and to have her ears scratched.
Like all wild animals they are not meant to live in cages, so when she grew up we gave her to a friend who ran a private game park.

If I had not seen one elephant (See previous post) this little striped field mouse would have been worth the trip.


A family of warthogs - also favourites. They are so ugly they are beautiful. Real social animals.


We once had a weaver bird like this one drop dead in our yard from exhaustion, while building nests for his prospective wives. He was quite manic and would not stop. I don't think he ever mastered the art, because most of the nests were rejected.
This one was waiting for a hand out. He seemed quite unaware of the rules about not feeding the animals - more likely couldn't care less.
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