Even though the day was cloudy and rain was forecast we still
decided to go ahead and go to Addo Elephant Park.
We have been told that the elephants are
nowhere to be found when it is rainy and windy but you never know.
The skies were actually hopeful looking as we
drove and then closer to PE the skies became darker and we got rain…quite a bit
of it.
So we stopped at Nanaga Farm
Stall and decided we would just go to PE and visit Makro and get lunch and head
back to Port Alfred.
Then on the
way…another decision…to turn around and go ahead and go to Addo.
When we stopped at the pay station they told
us it would be R640 for the four of us to go in.
WHOA…way too much money!
Rick told them that we were considered to be
residents because we have been in country for more than one year. After showing
the copies of our passports they let us all in for R160. We then went to the
gift shop and I picked up a dung beetle t-shirt for Rick.
We haven’t seen dung beetles any of the other
times we have visited Addo and it was one of the things that Rick really wanted
to see. He is weird that way, loves bugs and stuff. So I decided a t-shirt
might be the only remembrance of the little critter he would ever get.
We then went to the next check-in gate and we
were turned away and not allowed to enter
because the first gate put the wrong date on
the slip…he called the gate and was told to send us back to them.
When we got there they were kind of confused
as to what we needed. We finally got them to understand that we needed a new
slip with the correct date on it so we could enter the park. All they did was
change one number on the slip they first gave us with a pen
and sent us on our way.
The guy at the second gate looked at it and
sent us through…I could have changed the date myself for all of the running
around!!!
Anyway…we were on our
way.
We drove quite a while and did see zebra, the ever present warthog, and a number of the deer like critters, a tortoise and a
couple of mongoose playing.
The tortoise
was a new sighting for us, however,
through all of our driving we only saw one elephant.
These are two different pictures taken minutes apart.
He was brown, alone, in the
brush
and not moving.
We figured he had been rolling in the mud
somewhere because all of the elephants we have seen in Addo before have
definitely been grey.
Sister Chase
thought he was a stuffed elephant planted there because all the other "REAL"
elephants left!!!!
We kept driving and
guess what??? It happened. I looked in the roadway and behold…a DUNG BEETLE
!!!
Rick almost hit him, but I stopped
him just in time….our first dung beetle.
Earlier Rick had offered R50 to whoever found a dung beetle…I won!!!
From there on we were in dung beetle
heaven.
This was a Dung Beetle
Safari!!!
We saw all that this amazing beetle
does…forming the dung into a ball…pushing it to wherever it goes
(backwards).
We even saw a small dung
beetle war!!
Well, maybe a small fight,
anyway!!
When we were finished with our
tour we had counted 68 “is beetles” (alive) and quite a few “was beetles”
(dead)!
Not bad for our
last day at the Addo Elephant Park!!
After our dung beetle adventure, we stopped at the
restaurant they have at the park and had a late lunch.
We returned to Port Alfred around 6 and stopped at Super
Spar to get rolls we needed for the zone conference tomorrow and then
went back to our boarding. The Chases left shortly after that to go back to
Grahamstown.
Maybe about a half an hour later, we received a call from
Sister Chase that they had been in an accident.
She wasn’t sure where they were, except we knew they were on R67 which
goes to Grahamstown. We told her we were
on our way to get them. She was pretty
shaken up but other than her hand, they were fine. They had actually gotten about half way to
Grahamstown where as they started into a curve and Elder Chase lost control of
the car. They were tossed around a lot and finally stopped nose first
into a tree. A nice
young man from a nearby farm heard the crash and came to see if he could help. He stayed with
them the whole time they were there. I
guess several people stopped before we got there but couldn’t help. On our way Rick called Brother Moore who is
a police officer for Bathurst, which has jurisdiction where the accident occurred. Brother Moore called the officer on duty to
make sure things were taken care of and that the Chases would be safe. They
showed up not too long after we arrived.
A tow truck from Port Alfred had also been called by a person who had
stopped earlier. We brought the Chases
back to our boarding and put them up for the night since we all had to be in
East London on the next day. We called
President Boyce to make him aware of all that had happened, as this area is
his responsibility as first councilor in the mission presidency. The car was pretty badly damaged and not
drivable at all.
What a day!!!
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