Addo Elephant Park South Africa | Addo Guest House Accommodation

We are pleased to tell you that we have sighted the newly released Lions on River Bend, and can report that they seem to have settled in well to their relatively new surroundings. There is definitely an air of Spring around and we will post some photographs to share with you on the GALLERY page.

We are pleased to telll you that we have sighted the newly released Lions on River Bend, and can report that they seem to have settled in well to their relatively new surroundings - tey were relocated from Addo Elephant National Park.

There is definitely an air of Spring around and we will post some photographs to share with you on our GALLEY page as well as on our Facebook page which has a link on our Website.

15th of August 2009

17/08/2009 03:17:05 PM

A very very cold morning turned into a very successful game drive on this day. My Italian couple has been doing game drives in the Kruger for their first two weeks and of all the drives they had they only managed to see all four of the big five, except lions. Deciding to come down to Addo for their last night was to an extreme last resort to find lions as they were going to finish their holiday in Cape town via the Garden route.

My only chance to look for these big cats was on their last drive, which by good faith, I managed to find a pride of six lions right next to the road!

The general public driving in their cars in the Addo main section don’t have a very good vision of game as they are sitting in very low cars but luckily for us, being in a game vehicle meant having a good view of these lions walking towards us about 250 m from the vehicles. We had good visual of these lions as they walked towards us and we were busy taking pictures in this process when suddenly they all came to a halt and sat down. We decided to go to the next viewing point to have to coffee-break while we wait for the lions to come closer and as we sipped our last sips, we herd more roaring coming from the same area. We packed our coffee cups and drove back where we had a good sighting of three cubs, one big male and a juvenile male.

So that was my last game drive with the Italian couple who were seriously looking for the lions on their last game drive of their visit to Africa after frantic efforts looking for them in Kruger Park. What a lucky day and a happy ending for this couple!

13 July 2009

14/07/2009 10:01:45 AM

My guests and I have been looking for lions for the past three nights and
not knowing that the 11th of July had something good installed for us. As
usual I normally try to look for lions in the main section of the Park early in the morning but this day was another day, all to our advantage...

First we saw two cars parked at Zuurkop and as we drove there we saw that there was a black rhino busy browsing in the thicket. The elusive rhino stood there for
a few minutes before it disappeared into the thicket, so we decided to move on. From this sighting I went to Carol's Rest, one of the waterholes known for good sightings of lions or buffaloes. We found over 80 buffaloes and calves! We watched them for a few minutes and then decided to move on and complete the whole loop which is a one
way route. On my way, just before I finished the open plains I came across a young
lion and lioness busy stalking a warthog with its piglets!

Within minutes they managed to kill a baby warthog (which was not
a good meal to feed two lions of about 4 years old) right there in front of our eyes. The lioness did the killing and then the lion wanted the whole share and she was not happy. As she was still busy sufocating the little piglet they started fighting over the kill which affected our sighting as we lost visual of the two while she was trying to run away with the
kill and he was following her. They then dissappeared into the bush. What a
n amazing sighting after three nights of looking for them.

After a brief stop for a cup of coffee, I continued with my drive heading
towards another busy waterhole which is becoming the main waterhole
by the name HAPOOR. On my way, I came across different types of usual game for
those who have been to Addo. There were over 100 female elephants and calves drinking water and the bulls were no where to be found. What a fantastic drive to mark the last night of Sally and Rob, my two English guests staying with us for 4 nights. For those who know Addo, its not always that easy to get four of the big five in one drive so that definitely made our day!

Will keep you updated for all the other related sightings soon.

Kind regards

Darlington

Better Porcupine Sightings Early Winter

02/07/2009 08:48:04 PM

Since the previous week, I have had amazing sightings of Aardvark and Porcupine almost everyday! Two days ago I had some local guests (South Africans) who have been to many of the best and well known Game Reserves around the country. One of the guests said they had never seen an aardvark before, except one that was hit by a car on the road when they were in Mafikeng! Of all the three nights that they were staying at River Bend, they saw three aardvarks and between 6-8 porcupines each day. As their first sighting of these norturnal animals, it gave them an idea of what the bush is all about. We had a fantastic 3 days full of elephants & giraffe sightings in our Private reserve and some close encounters with white Rhino. Besides all we had fantastic weather and beautiful sun sets with gin and tonics.

LIONS - 27 January 2009

28/01/2009 11:36:56 AM

My drive started off on a rather chilly summer morning when my guests and I decided to try and relocate the lions we saw the previous evening. Judging from Jed who visited the same sighting around 7pm the day before, I thought the lions must be more or less in the same spot as all I could hear was hyenas calling and the lions trying to locate each other as they kept roaring.

We came across a clan of hyenas drinking at the waterhole, when the next minute I looked up to see one of the dominant male lions approaching the waterhole. At first I thought the hyenas were going to run away but they stayed put. Slowly approaching the waterhole the lion did not seem to pay attention to the hyenas as they all hudled closely together, probably also waiting to see what the lion was going to do. He got to the waterhole and started drinking for a good quarter of an hour while the clan of hyenas just anxiously watched him.

He then walked off in a northerly direction and I thought it was the last time we were going to see him, when I suddenly heard a loud noise coming from the same direction and all of a sudden there were three more lions just behind the bush chasing each other! Suddenly we were watching two male lions chasing away a young male with some serios action. With the noise of lion fighting, three of the hyenas disappeared and the other two scurried off into another direction.

The one male chased the poor youngster and didn't stop for a good 3 km while the other one stayed with the lioness.

When we eventually decided to turn back I heard another noise from the bush. A kudu was being killed by the three hyenas! Within a few minutes another hyena came out carrying a hind leg of the kudu covered in blood! We stayed with this scene for a while and en-route back to lodge came across the young male lion who got chased. Before I managed to stop the vehicle he jumped to the side, dissapeared and re-emerged with a wharthog piglet in his mouth! Obviously, the chase did not affect him as much as it did my guests! Late for breakfast, but another day in paradise.

Spring in Addo

12/09/2008 04:20:01 PM

Well this last week has been really good. Going out on one drive seeing Aardvark, caracal, buffalo and elephant. and the week seemed to have a flowing sightings list. The bush is really looking nice again we could do with some more rain but it is looking green.
On the birding front all the weavers are slowly coming back into the garden just waiting to see or hear the first Dedricks cuckoo and many more of our summer visiters.

Diary - 12 September 08

12/09/2008 04:08:22 PM

We have been seeing the Aardfark again... really nice. I think probably as the summer gets into full swing he, or should I say 'it' will dissappear for a while only being visible on night drives. The elephants have been at the lodge for the last month with the odd days here and there where they do not pop around the lodge to say hi but rather retreat to the mountains. We had a fantastic caracal sighting the other day whilst on a short drive. Buffalo have been seen quite a lot lately and the odd black rhino, but we are keeping our eyes open to see if we can spot the some of the youngsters. Jed saw them today, both Kathy and her calf. General game have been very good with lots of Zebra around as well as Red Heartbeast. Spring is here with the flowers starting to come out, even though it does not feel like it yet.

David

Leopard sighting!

26/06/2008 10:48:58 AM

On the 4th of June while on an exploratory drive Jed Bird, David Parker and Charl Gammelin guides from River Bend lodge came across a male bushbuck that had been killed. After examining the carcass for a while we came to the conclusion that it was killed by either a leopard or a large Caracal, after capturing photographic evidence of a caracal on a camera trap close by in the area it was assumed that the bushbuck was in fact killed by a caracal. Had it been killed by jackal most of the carcass would have been eaten.

On the 6th of June Jed and I went to check if the Camera had captured any shots of any Rhino in the area. When scanning through the pictures to our amazement we found out that we were wrong about the caracal killing the bushbuck. To our utter amazement a leopard had come past that water point the night before at around midnight. Spirits are really high at the moment especially due to the fact that this leopard a young tom of about four to five years of age and is the first wild/ non-introduced leopard to be photographed in the Greater Addo Elephant National Park. This has given the rangers at River Bend huge hope and excitement to see who can find this leopard on game drive. We'll have to wait and see. Stay tuned for next month's ranger's diary!

David Parker

Guide

[quote] Elegance is good taste plus a dash of daring - Carmel Snow

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