Thursday 11 May 2017

Day 15: Tembe Elephant Park

Panda scored again... Tembe is awesome, another gem to recommend. 

We left Kosi after breakfast and it took us an hour to get to Tembe, including a fuel stop. We arrived in camp with the staff gathered around singing us a welcome song. We were then given cold, damp facecloths to freshen up. Not that we had worked up a sweat in the last hour but it was a lovely touch.

Out tent, yes camping again, … in a rather luxurious big en-suite tent, secluded in the middle of the bush. We even have an open tent at the back for spa treatments. Tried to talk Gray into a couples massage – but that ain't going to happen. My friend Al Purchase would love the attention to detail, we even have leaves set in the toilet paper. 


We have nyala wondering past our tent and lots of crested guineafowl in the camp. These are funny looking birds, that look like they are wearing Afro wigs.

The park, situated in Maputuland, was established in 1983 on Tembe Tribal Trust land and is 300sq km. The terrain is sand forest and is home to one of the three original elephant populations in SA. The current elephant population is around 260, including some of the biggest tuskers in Southern Africa. The Big 5 and the endangered suni antelope can also be found here. 

After lunch, I chilled around the pool before our afternoon game drive. Our game guide took us on a 3 hour drive around parts of the reserve. We saw lots of ellie but mainly nyala. Like impala are to Kruger Park, so nyala are to this area. The elephants are extremely good natured and clearly used to vehicles, they walk right up to us, as if they are coming to greet us.  After sundowners on the air strip, we drove home in the dark, encountering more elephants. 

After dinner we were entertained by traditional Tsongo dancers under a full moon.


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