Archived destinations
The air holidays shown are ATOL Protected by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 3253. ATOL Protection extends primarily to customers who book and pay in the United Kingdom. Click on the ATOL logo if you want to know more.
South Africa’s Garden Route
27 January – 11 February 2012
Addo Elephant National Park
National Park includes six of the seven biomes represented in South Africa: fynbos, karoo, forest, thicket, savannah and grassland.
The Addo Elephant National Park is renowned for its impressive herds of elephants, as well as the large variety of plants, birds and animals adapted to the climate of the Eastern Cape.
It offers the full spectrum of wildlife originally found in the area, including the ‘big five’: elephant, lion, black rhino, leopard and Cape buffalo, as well as Burchell’s zebra, eland, black wildebeest, red hartebeest and kudu. Many other species of smaller mammals may be sighted with a little patience.
There are numerous game drives within the park, as well as a bird hide overlooking an active water hole. This main water hole is floodlit at night, which gives you the opportunity to watch the game and enjoy a glass of wine at the same time! A hide overlooks a small pond, which is good for black crake, southern red bishop and weavers.
Open scrub on the Nzipondo Loop provides excellent opportunities for game watching and birding.We will be looking out for red-collared widowbird, acacia pied and black-collared barbets, karoo and white-browed scrub-robins, chestnut-vented tit-babbler, southern tchagra, yellow-fronted and whitethroated canaries, emerald-spotted wood-dove, southern black tit, golden-breasted bunting and streaky-headed seed-eater.
Raptors include martial and booted eagles and jackal buzzard, and grassland has Denham’s bustard, black korhaan, blue crane and secretary bird. The Gorah loop is a good route to look out for some of the smaller mammals. Bushbuck, grysbok and common duiker can be seen, as well as Cape fox and yellow mongoose.
The Zuurberg Mountains are home to some fascinating plants. The Zuurberg cycad Encephalartos longifolius and the Zuurberg hunchback Oldenburgia arbuscula are two to look for. In the arid lands of the Karoo, birds, mammals and reptiles have adapted to the harsh climate. Plants include the botterboom, with its papery bark, the thorny Karoo acacia and the many eye-catching aloes.
A night drive is an optional extra for nocturnal creatures like spring hare, scrub hare, porcupine, aardvark and polecat, as well as owls and nightjars.
African elephant (Geoff Crane)
Pictures of mammals in Addo Elephant National Park here
Blue cranes (Geoff Crane)
