Outside of Kruger, the Addo Elephant National Park is probably the most well known park in South Africa. Like many parks, the public is allowed to take their personal vehicles through on game drives- although after the Wounded Zebra thundered through Addo, there may be a serious rethinking of that policy. We thought it would be a great idea to turn our somewhat dilapidated camper into a safari vehicle for a number of reasons. First of all, we had never done anything like that before and based on the stares we got, apparently no one else has either. Secondly, since the Wounded Zebra is obviously only days away from the Car Crusher at the local scrap yard, we thought it would be a nice treat for her to see some of the Big 5 before becoming a number of recycled tin cans. And if you are going to do a self-drive in a game reserve why not do it in a park that is known for its elephant herds (do you really need a seasoned tracker to spot elephants??).

The original elephant section of the park was proclaimed in 1931, when only eleven elephants remained in the area. Now the third largest national park in South Africa, Addo Elephant National Park has expanded to conserve a wide range of biodiversity, landscapes, fauna and flora. Addo covers about 450,000 acres and includes the Bird and St Croix Island groups. These marine assets form part of the plan to expand the Addo National Elephant Park into the 3,600 km² Greater Addo Elephant National Park. The expansion will mean not only that the park contains five of South Africa's seven major vegetation zones, but also that it will be the only park in the world to house Africa's "Big 7" (elephant, rhinoceros, lion, buffalo, leopard, southern right whale and great white shark) in their natural habitat.  

More than 600 elephants, 400 Cape buffalo, over 48 endangered black rhino as well as a variety of antelope species call Addo home. Lion and spotted hyena have also recently been re-introduced to the area. And just to take you to the other end of the size scale, the largest remaining population of the flightless dung beetle is located within the park. It turns out that the biggest spotting challenge is not in finding the elephants but ensuring you don't drive over any beetles or elephant dung that they might be burrowing in- signs everywhere indicate that the beetle has the right of way in the park. Not quite the same resonance as the Save-The-Rhino campaign but local authorities are working hard to save them. The poor little Flightless Dung Beetle is endemic to a few areas of South Africa and was once widespread throughout SA but is now limited to a few pockets of populations, the largest being at Addo Elephant Park. 

As we drove diligently around piles of elephant dung on the road, it took a while but just as we thought we might need a tracker to find these elephants, a relatively large herd rounded the bend and headed straight for us. Apparently they had never seen anyone trying to do a game drive in a large elephant-shaped campervan, and they did seem to take exception to the concept- a number of these not-so-tiny critters did the trumpeting, ear flapping and fake charges.

The foibles of the Wounded Zebra continue- the fact that it took us days to figure out that the stove doesn`t work (phoning the rental office got us the o-so-helpful suggestion to jiggle the wires underneath the counter) probably says as much about our culinary skills as it does about the broken down state of our camper. Numerous k*** have also come off but they appear related to previous injuries. 

And just in case you thought the Cheetah tracking was our most dangerous wildlife encounter to date apparently the Princess was attacked by a pigeon in the campground shower- a ruckus of flapping, squawking, and banging ensued... and the bird made a bit of noise as well. According to DH, wildlife is much scarier when you are naked so all future safaris will involve clothing.