South Africa 2023

Tuesday31October

We continue the road we started yesterday in the Drakensberg to reach the next stage, Addo Elephant Park. A thousand kilometers between the two, and since we did a little more than half yesterday, we should therefore arrive in the early afternoon.

Stop at Cradock to fill the car tank. We will notice its church in the unusual neo-Gothic style in the region.

The further south we go, the greener the landscapes become. We are also getting closer to the large wine regions.

And hop, here we are at Addo Elephant where we place ourselves on one of the plots still available... At least after asking permission from the previous occupants who are still busy weeding the location...  

These are two bushbucks (Tragelaphus sylvaticus).

We set up the tent in two seconds (since that's its name), then start exploring the park.

A greater Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros).

A leopard tortoise (Stigmochelys paralis).

We must have mistaken the reserve, we think we are at "Addo Zebras National Park"...

Oh no, we can't go everywhere. Nor get out of the car to pick drosanthemums.

A couple of warthogs.

A helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris).

Two plains zebras (Equus quagga).

The zebra and the hartebeest. Same diet. But two different styles.

The red hartebeest (Alcelaphus buselaphus).

A stealthy yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata).

A flightless dung beetle (Circellium bacchus), small but strong, it can push loads that are 1000 times its weight!   That's no reason to drive over it! This will force you to slalom on the tracks which it crosses very often.  

A black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas). The name "chabraque" comes from the word designating a piece of cloth or animal skin used to cover a horse's saddle, like the band of black fur covering its back.

Small area where it is possible to get out of the car and even, to enjoy the landscape sitting on this bench...

But watch out for lions!!!    

A vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus1). As comfortable on the ground as in the trees.

Return to the campsite. And obviously, with the traditional barbecue. Sausage potatoes for tonight!  

Wednesday1stNovember

Sunny awakening. We are far from the snow of two days ago...  

And here we go again for a new day of discovering African wildlife. It starts with this pretty raptor, the pale chanting goshawk (Melierax canorus).

Hoooo! A white rhinoceros! The white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is the largest of current rhinoceroses and the second largest land mammal after the elephant.

Ha! Even the road signs warn us! Watch out for dung beetles!  

So here is our largest land mammal able to wander on our planet. It was time to meet him, since we are in the park bearing his name.  

And here is the beast in its usual nonchalant movement.

Cape weavers (Ploceus capensis)! The great arboreal workers of the savannah!

"The Cape Weaver builds hanging nests made of grass and long leaves, with a downward-facing entrance. Males build several nests to attract females, using these nests as a display. Dominant and aggressive males are more successful in attracting females. Once seduced, the female tests the solidity of the nest before entering it" © Wikipedia

In the same tree, a pied crow (Corvus albus) broods its little chicks! The young stay in the nest for about 4-5 weeks before taking flight.

A hadada ibis (Bostrychia hagedash).

Beetles do not just deal with dung... Here a millipede Doratogonus rugifrons leaves its companion in the paws of the athletic beetle...  

Zebra hindquarters...  

Anthology of stripes...

Cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis).

Accompanied by sacred Ibises (Threskiornis aethiopicus).

The guarded ox today is an elephant.  

A black-headed heron (Ardea melanocephala).

A malachite sunbird (Nectarina famosa).

The malachite sunbird on the left and a fiscal flycatcher (Melaenornis silens) on the right.

Ha. Teen elephants?   The term Addo given to the name of the park simply comes from the name that already existed here when the park was created in 1931. There were 11 elephants at the time. Today, there are more than 600.

The cattle egret does not really guard large mammals, but simply takes advantage of the insects that fly away when the pachyderms move.

Flexion. Extension.

Like all mammals, the elephant is hairy. Zoom in to find the hairs.  

There was rolling in the mud.

A large number of the pachyderm's hairs are found at the end of its tail.

Lunch at Jack Picnic Site. Plenty of small pitches each with its barbecue and pergola to be sheltered from the sun.

Forbidden to feed vervet monkeys and other wild animals. The other wild animal is for us a red-necked francolin (Ptemistis afer).

A giant termite mound.

Tuskless elephants are more numerous due to the intense poaching pressure in the past. Natural selection favored tuskless individuals because they were not hunted by ivory poachers.

Elephant ears have many functions: thermal regulation, listening to low frequency sounds, social communication.  

Scientists taking measurements?  

Rear legs of the leopard tortoise.  

Ravined erosion in "bad lands".

A hartebeest looking for its tribe?  

Hey? We hadn't seen it yet! The common ostrich (Struthio camelus), the largest bird! We'll see it often now.

This one neither, we hadn't seen it yet. It's a common eland (Taurotragus oryx).

Him, we've already seen him several times. It's the black-backed jackal.

Them too, already seen... The pale chanting goshawk, and the made-up helmeted guineafowl.

A secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) walks in the meadow. The specialty of this large raptor that moves like a wader? Catching snakes. Its second name is the snake eater...

Return to our ostrich which true to its reputation buries its head in the ground. Oh no, it was just a parallax effect... Pardon madam.

We rarely see on our stalls, the impressive and muscular thighs and wings of ostriches...

Close-up on the warthog, wild boar of the savannah. In addition to its look not necessarily to its advantage, it sometimes gets on its knees to graze grass and roots at ground level more easily.  

A superb hoopoe.

Small versus big... The yellow mongoose, like meerkats, stands on its hind legs to monitor surrounding threats. Obviously, no danger with the elephant.  

Tourists travel the park in a jeep with a guide. They thus have the right to drive on tracks that we cannot use. As for us, the bell rings for the return to the campsite!

No comment for this end of the evening.