12-14th February 2013

The Cango caves were incredible!
Thankfully that morning we woke up to sunshine and let the tent dry out in the morning sun as we ate our breakfast. We got to the caves as early as we could but it was still packed out with tourists when we arrived. It is a real tourist trap but absolutely worth the visit!

500 THOUSAND year old stalagmites and stalactites form a ghoulish cavern deep under ground. Alien-like pillars and fairy tale homes appear in rock and crystal all around you. Just amazing.

The caves are imaginatively named and each area has its own ‘story’; from the Throne Room to the bridal suite, to the depiction of the birth of Christ himself, The Madonna and Child. The formations resemble so many scenes from the bible its kind of eerie…alongside Madonna “stands the Three Wise Men and, with a little more imagination, two shepherds kneel in silent adoration to her right. Completing the drama, to the left of the main staircase is a trio of formations known as The Temple Presentation, depicting Joseph, Mary with head bowed, and the gaunt figure of the prophet Simeon. Further left, high in a dark alcove, one can glimpse the stark figure of a crucified man.”

Personally I can just see nature being its incredible self. Dried up rimstone pools rising from the floor, amazing flowstone formations and towers created from hundreds of thousands of years of dripping water! This is enough to amaze me without the attached story book.

Next up, as we had gotten right into being tourists for the day, we decided to visit one of the Ostrich farms in the area. We ate our first Ostrich burger on the way there (there is a reason it hasn’t really taken off to be fair) and then joined our tour guide to show us around the farm itself.

We learned that Ostrich’s have to ingest pebbles and stones to grind up their food in their stomachs, their brains will fit onto a teaspoon, they can each provide upto 50kg of prime meat and each female can lay up to 120 eggs in 6 months (if she is fooled into it). It was really interesting to learn so much about these strange animals and I even got to hold a one day old chick!

He was as big as a duck and rather relaxed draped over my palm until he tried to make a run for it but his feet would not help him! Alex fed the ostriches but neither of us wanted to ride one! Yes, you read right, we were invited to go for a ride on an ostrich! I know we ride horses and donkeys and things but it just seemed a little unfair to ride something with the same number of legs as us…I definitely wouldn’t want one of them to ride me!

People lined up to go for a ride. Although the pea brained ostriches didn’t seem to mind it didn’t look much like fun for them. They are penned into a frame with a little hat on to cover their eyes whilst the rider gets into position then the hat is whipped off, the ostrich backs out of the frame and runs off with its rider holding on for grim death!

….Alex just couldn’t understand why I didn’t want a go!!

We were all touristed out after that and hit the road towards Addo elephant park! I would have loved to have done a safari whilst in Africa but as you all know our budget is not ever lasting so we were happy to go to visit a game reserve to see some ‘wild’ animals instead.

We split our 360km journey into two days and made it late afternoon. We tried to check in to camp at the park but it was full so we camped in a site nearby and met a lovely English couple who had been driving around Africa on and off for 2.5 years in a 4 wheel drive and a tent!

We really took our hats off to them, tent camping in Africa is one thing, driving around is another (and apparently they had had their fair share of break downs) and doing it all in a wheelchair is just outright incredible! Brian and Jan faced all the challenges that came with travelling, camping, driving and maintaining a relationship and they faced them with Brian being unable to walk! I was just blown away by their courage and all that they had achieved  it was so nice to meet fellow adventurers all this way from home.

We chattered the night away with them and annoyed them over breakfast too, I was up in the middle of the night with the excitement of getting to the park at 7am as the gates opened. There would be greater chance of seeing more animals if we got there early doors. I was told to go back to sleep until daylight and we arrived at Addo Elephant park at 9am after packing away the tent and saying our goodbyes.

We paid our entry fee, picked up a map, looked at the recent locations of sightings posted on the info board and set off on the dirt track that is Addo elephant park. It is basically a self drive game reserve where you can view all of the big 5…including the cats!!

Within 3 miles we stopped at a watering hole and saw zebra grazing, warthog running about, Impala and a lone male Buffalo splashing in the water and loads and loads of birds! I was made up! I didn’t think we would see much in a park 450,000 acres big!

We excitedly carried on and saw all kinds of animals and birds as we bombed (slowly) around the miles and miles of track. We spotted dung beetles, secretary birds, eagles by the dozen, ancient and brand new tortoises, baby warthogs shadowing their mums, lots of boks and finally…after lots of spying…the shy and ever elusive African Elephant!

We were feeling defeated that we had not spotted an elephant and at an info stop we saw that there had been a recent sighting on a track we had just been down. We decided to go around again and look harder!

We wondered how hard you really had to look to spot an elephant but they are great at hiding believe me! Alex drove around once and then I drove around and (amazingly) Alex spotted an inch of potential elephant! We skidded to a halt (a skill at the slow pace we were going) and trained our eyes on the patch of grey in the dense bushes. I was gobsmacked when we confirmed that we had spotted an inch of elephant ass!

We watched for ages and saw them have a little peep at us a few times through the thick prickly veld. I was so thrilled we had seen them, if only by the inch! I would much rather see and inch of elephant in its natural habitat than behind a fence in a zoo.

The elephant sighting signalled the end of our tour of Addo elephant park. We had to rush to get to our next stop on our Eastern Cape adventure. We left the park and drove like Rally drivers along the dirt track to get to the highway, we hadn’t really left ourselves enough time to get to our next destination…of course in true Lisa and Alex style as we skidded and bumped down the dirt track the tent popped open and we almost took off. We had to stop and repack the tent and make sure it was tightened to hold it down and then carry on our way.

We made it to Fort D’Acre just in time..and this signalled the beginning of a whole new wedding adventure on the Eastern Cape of South Africa!