Around the World and Still Going!: Garden Route Holiday (part 5): Addo

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Garden Route Holiday (part 5): Addo

Just like Wilderness, I didn't want to leave Tsitsikamma, but it was time to move out to our final destination, Addo. We left the coast and headed north of Port Elizabeth. We stayed at an amazing lodge called Woodall Country House right outside the National Park. Originally a citrus farm, the country house has been converted into a five star accommodation. We stayed in a fantastic suite with it's own private plunge pool, which we spent every afternoon playing in.

Piper LOVED the plunge pool. We had a lot of fun spending our afternoons swimming and relaxing.

Our mornings were spent driving around Addo National Park. This park is known for it's very large number of elephants. The park does not practice culling, it lets the elephant population grow and decline naturally. There are over 600 elephants in the park and they are not as aggressive or skittish as the elephants found in many other parks, due to this lack of culling.

It was very hot while we were there (temps in the high 90's), which meant that a lot of the elephants would be at the water holes. We saw at least 100-150 elephants at and around this waterhole both mornings. It was amazing!

We also saw numerous zebra's (Piper calls them Marty), warthogs (pumbas), antelope, and tons of birds.

Snack break!

After nap time and the afternoon swimming, we'd head to the main house at the lodge for some cocktails, dinner and bird watching. Anyone who knows me knows I am not a foodie (if I could live without eating, I'd be a happy camper), but the dinners served at Woodall were by far some of the best food I have had in South Africa, actually in just about anywhere!