The activity today was a full-day guided safari which was included in our stay at Chrislin. It was done by their sister company, Criss Cross Adventures. It’s a family business: the woman who owns Chrislin, her son owns Criss Cross Adventures.
We had breakfast at Chrislin and then met our driver/tour guide at 08:30. His name was Densley, and he was, in a word, amazing. I’ll talk more about him as we go. But right from the beginning, he was very lighthearted, always telling jokes and making us laugh. Other than Sarah and I, there was only one person on the tour. Her name was Kathleen, and she was very nice.
The tour was mostly not in Addo Elephant Park. We went through Addo first, and saw several of the things that we had seen yesterday, like zebras, kudus, hartebeests, and so on. Then we moved on to a neighbouring, private wildlife reserve called Schotia.
One thing about Addo is that all of their animals are native to this area. But the Schotia reserve actually has several other non-native animals as well. They are animals that are native to Africa, just not this specific area. But even in the reserve, they are living in the wild. They are in the same area as predators, like the lions, hyenas, and jackals. Nobody feeds them, they live off of the vegetation in the reserve. But it’s nice for the tour company, because they can show a lot more species than are present in Addo, and we certainly enjoyed seeing them!
Throughout the day, we saw many different species of antelope. There was the kudu, the red hartebeest, the springbok, the nyala, the waterbuck, the oryx, the sable, and many others. They were all beautiful animals, each with our own markings, all different sizes, various types of horns, and so on. Some of them, funnily enough, had nicknames based on their butt markings. The red hartebeest was the “bikini butt”, because it had a white butt that looked like a bikini bottom. Whereas the waterbuck was the “ring butt” because of a white ring around its butt. You could always tell how old a kudu was, because you count the number of twists in its horn – 3 years for every twist. We saw the eland, the largest antelope in the world. We also saw the duiker, the smallest antelope in the world. The oryx had very beautiful markings, and we saw an albino one as well.
We learned quite quickly that Densley has very good eyes, and could spot and identify things at a glance, even at a distance and without binoculars. More on that later, but when we would see some kind of antelope off in the trees, he would take a quick look and tell us exactly what it was. Quite amazing!
We saw a buffalo early on, which we hadn’t seen yesterday. There was one lying down in a dirt area. It was a territorial male, so it wasn’t in a group.
Like yesterday, we saw lots of warthogs, including several families with young ones. The warthogs like to run when you get too close, and they stick their skinny little tails straight up in the air when they go! Densley would say they “have their antennas up” and that’s exactly what it looked like!
We saw some elephants, of course, and got quite close to one of them. We then started down the trail and stopped for another animal, and when we looked back, the elephant was following us!
We saw several wildebeest as well. Mostly blue wildebeest, but also some black wildebeest toward the end. We also saw them running, reminiscent of The Lion King.
We also saw hippos, which was very cool, but also kinda creepy. We saw them at a couple of watering holes. Hippos are…crazy. They don’t hunt or eat meat, but if they feel territorial or you get too close to their young, they can become very aggressive and very dangerous. Densley said that 3500 people in Africa are killed every year by hippos! Their jaw and teeth are so strong that they can bite a crocodile in half. Needless to say, we stayed in the vehicle and kept our distance.
Speaking of crocodiles, we also saw a couple of those! They were in another watering hole, close to where we had lunch. Densley said that pretty recently he saw one of the crocodiles kill a wildebeest. There were two adult wildebeest and a young one who went for a drink at the watering hole, and they didn’t notice the crocodile. The crocodile quickly grabbed the young one, and there was nothing the adults could do. The circle of life… 🙂
During lunch Densley told us a funny story. He was having lunch with another tour group, and they saw a lion out the window (outside of the fenced-in lunch area). It can be hard to see the lions here (we didn’t end up seeing any) so everyone ran outside to take pictures. When they came back in, a bunch of monkeys had come in and eaten all of their food! Whoops!
For lunch we had some salads, sausages, and delicious chicken kebabs that Densley cooked for us. Just as we were arriving at the lunch area we saw a group of giraffes off in the distance! Once we were done eating, that’s where we went next.
The giraffes were amazing! Densley let us get out of the vehicle and he took our pictures with the giraffes. We got lots of great views. Sarah was super excited; one of her target birds, the oxpecker, was on the giraffes! They are very pretty little birds. They eat the ticks off the large animals. It was pretty awesome to see them as well.
We found some lion tracks, but they were old, so they didn’t lead us to the lions. We saw lots of ostriches, which were very cool.
But then, oh man. We had a couple of spots where we were looking around for a rhino. There were signs that it had been there, but we couldn’t see it. Then as we were driving along, Densley stopped. He told us that he had just seen the rhino, and he explained to us where it is. And oh my goodness, it was waaaaaay far away on a hill that we could see from the ridge we were on. I basically couldn’t see it with my naked eye, and even struggled to find it in my binoculars. Kathleen never did see it, but Sarah did eventually. But Densley found it with his naked eye, WHILE DRIVING! I was super impressed.
It was far away and not very close to a road, but it was gradually moving toward a road. So after searching for lions for a bit, Densley took us over to the area where he had seen the rhino. The problem is, we couldn’t find it. We were driving around, he was looking all around, we were looking, but it was pretty brushy and hard to see. It could have been hiding in the brush just a few meters away from the road, and we wouldn’t be able to see it.
But then, I noticed that Densley started driving with more purpose. Instead of scanning, it seemed like he was trying to get somewhere. I don’t know if I was imagining it, or if he saw something, or if he just had an instinct for where to check.
After a minute, we rounded a corner, and there it was! The rhino was walking along the road right in front of us! It was so cool to see. It sure wasn’t staying still, though! We got some views and pictures, and then moved on. Later we heard on the two-way radio that the rhino was found drinking at one of the watering holes. I bet that’s where he was going. Then later, he was out in the open in a very nice area, and we went very close and got some great photos.
Quick note: rhinos are in trouble. Poaching has reduced their numbers significantly because of the value of their horns. You’ll notice that this rhino’s horn has been surgically removed, in order to deter poachers. Even so, I am following the guideline of not posting any photos which make the location of the rhino in the park evident, and this photo does not contain geolocation metadata.
I was incredibly impressed that Densley was able to spot it from such a distance, and then drive over and find it! Amazing.
The icing on the cake was at the very end. After we left the private reserve, we were driving back through Addo, and saw a herd of elephants making their way toward the road. And they had a very tiny, adorable baby with them. They crossed the road right behind our truck, and we got some great photos and videos of them. The mother was behind the baby, nudging it with her trunk to tell it where to go. Cute!
But there was one more exciting sighting for the day: a bird that Sarah wanted, called the secretary bird. It’s a pretty large bird with long legs and a long tail. It eats snakes, and it kills them by stomping on them with its feet. Its long legs are scaly and are impervious to snake venom. Anyway, there was a stretch through Addo where Densley said he often sees them, but we didn’t see any going in. On the way out, however, once again, he stopped the truck and said that he saw them. Again, with his naked eye. They were off in the distance on a bush, and sure enough we got the binoculars up and that’s what they were. There were two on the bush, and one in a field. We didn’t get really great views because they were so far away, but good enough to tell that that’s what they were. I couldn’t believe how good this guy’s eyesight was.
And that was it! An amazing day, with lots of great animals. Next up, a river tour. Stay tuned!