addo park

hallo, you can visit www.sacape.co.za , you should find info about it in 3 booklets:
Cape Town,Cape Winelands ,Route 62,Overberg & WestCoast
Garden Route,Klein Karoo,Route 62
*Eastern Cape,Coastal and Country Routes.
Lots love from Western Cape

If you want to see elephants then visit Addo. If you want to see anything else, go elsewhere. I know I will be flamed for saying that, but that is what we saw in Addo on a day visit. One night there is enough, and I would stay in the park if possible.
I have not been to the Bontebok Park outside of Swellendam for a long time, but that should also be worth a day visit.
Then, of course, you should visit Hermanus and see the whales, and also visit either Betty's Bay or Simonstown (or both) to see the penguin colonies.
PE to Cape Town is about 800km (500miles) and is quite comfortably done in a day by car.

The Addo National Park is magic, it is one of the world’s most exciting conservation projects having expanded over 7 times in the past 10 years but does not get the recognition it deserves.

A new gate has been opened at the coast which is a 45 minute drive from Port Elizabeth.

It now stretches 110 miles from the Sand dunes at Alexandria through the Zuurberg mountains to Darlington Lake in the Karoo at the far north of the park, you will see elephants there are 450 in a relatively small section of the park, you will also see plenty of warthog, kudu and zebra but you will be very lucky to see the lions.

There are plenty of places to stay park accommodation is fine but there are also several concessions in the park Darlington Lake Lodge at the far north is one of my favorite places.

Also take the chance to visit one of the adjacent private Game Reserves, Shamwari is the best and most expensive option, Schotia is the least expensive but they do an excellent game drive and you will get very close to the lions.

Your best option is to take a one way hire and drive from Cape Town and fly out of Port Elizabeth.

Eastcape Tours

We just returned from a month in South Africa. After visiting Gomo Gomo Game Lodge in the Timbavati Private Game Reserve, and Olifants, Satara and Skukuza rest camps in Kruger, we flew into Port Elizabeth and, then, over ten days or so leisurely worked our way down to Cape Town in a Toyota Corolla rented through discounter Auto Europe, which works with agencies like Avis and Budget. On the way to Cape Town, we visited Mountain Zebra NP, Addo Elephant NP, Tsitsikamma NP, the Cape of Good Hope, which is part of the greater Table Mountain NP, and Boulders Beach in Simonstown (also part of the South African National Parks system). We also stayed in towns and cities: PE, Jeffrey's Bay, Franschhoek and Hermanus. In Cape Town, we stayed at a lovely B & B in Camps Bay.
Anyhow, we spent four nights in Addo in both the Mathyolweni and main rest camps, and we could have spent even more time in Addo--if we had the time to spare. Addo is lush and green and its accommodations are attractive and spotless. You can either self cater (the main camp's shop has supplies but you can also shop beforehand in PE or in Colchester if you are staying at Mathyolweni) or eat at the main camp's restaurant, which is fairly good. We rented a rondavel overlooking a floodlit waterhole for two nights of our stay, but since it was the wet season when there is plentiful water in the bush, no elephants needed to visit the waterhole. Nonetheless, we saw heaps of elephants during our drives through the park, even during a ranger-led night drive, the elephants were still active, chomping away on vegetation in the dark. We noticed that the elephants in Addo seemed more relaxed around humans than those in Kruger, probably because, unlike the ones in Kruger, they have never been culled (Kruger culled elephants in 1995 and is due to cull again soon). We also saw other smaller game: lots of kudu, lots of warthogs, bush buck, grey duiker, meerkats, jackals, zebras, mongoose, Vervet monkeys, scrub hares, Cape Buffalo (Addo's Cape Buffalo, unlike many of those in Kruger, are disease free), one big tortoise right in the rest camp area, dung beetles, ostriches and other birds like herons, owls, ibises and Egyptian geese. Others also saw lions and hyenas. As I said before, it was the wet season so animals had little reason to congregate at waterholes, so with animals staying in the bush, sightings of the rarer animals were difficult. For instance, the ranger told us he had not sighted a black rhino for a month.
I should note that Mathyolweni rest camp is not in the main sectiion of the park but in the Colchester section that is closer to the ocean. Big game has not yet been introduced to this section of the park, however, the Mathyolweni cottages were my favorite, very restful, secluded and serene--a beautiful place to just chill. You can easily drive from Mathyolweni into the main section of Addo and then to the main rest camp. Otherwise, Mathyolweni is not a good place to base yourself as it is a bit far from the main game viewing areas. And you would be there to view game, right?
If you want to learn more about Addo or any other South African National Parks, it would be best to look through the official SAN parks website. Check out the forums. this website will not allow me to post the link even though the SAN Parks site is a non-commercial site (I tried). The site also features photos of the park and its accommodations, and park maps. You can also check accommodation availability through this site and book any SAN Park by calling the main office in Pretoria. The SAN Parks posters, along with posters to this board, were extremely helpful with my trip planning.
One more thing, the national parks are lovely, inexpensive, and offer great sightings, but, personally, the best sightings we had were at Gomo Gomo. The rangers and trackers in private game reserves can drive right into, and sometimes over, the bush so that you can get very up close and personal with the animals (I mean, within several feet of lions and leopards, and very close to Cape Buffalo and white rhinos--though we kept a respectful distance from elephants and hippos). They don't have to stick to roads. Plus Gomo Gomo shared sightings with all the other private game lodges in Timbavati. Most private lodges work very hard to show you animals, particularly the "Big 5." But if you go to a private game lodge, make sure you do your homework. For instance, the above poster mentions Shamwari and Schotia, which are both highly regarded. I have read many good reports about both of these lodges, so I wouldn't hesitate to go to one of these--if I could afford to do so. (Gomo Gomo was a kind of a "budget" lodge.) I liked the option of doing both a private game lodge and a national park. The two experiences were very different. As for the self drive experience of the national parks, there is something about just driving around on your own and then just stumbling onto a group of 20 or so elephants or one lone jackal! It was an amazing, fun and affordable adventure.

That is a great, well-written report. Fabulous. Thank you Tanqi.
The parks board web-site is here: www.Sanparks.org</a>

I went to the park yesterday.

Saw loads of elephants as normal, had to move the car out of the way of a huge bull elephant, also had a mother and baby about 4 months old right next to the car.

Kudu and warthog every where, also managed to see a herd of about 70 buffalos, but the lions were nowhere to be seen.

They are busy with fencing the Mathyolweni section and elephants will be introduced during October.

East Cape Tours