As I said in my previous post about J-bay, the owner of the hostel Cristal Cove advised me to go to two Safari Parks on a day trip rather than to one. The reason being that Kragga Kamma is often overlooked. It is more unknown and therefore not as busy as Addo Elephant Park.
I’m so happy that I followed his advice!
Kragga Kamma Game Park
Kragga Kamma is not super easy to find. There are no road signs until you almost reach the Park, so before setting off be sure to ask for clear directions.
The route to the Park takes you over bridges like this one.
When you reach the park early, it will be very quiet (maybe it was extra quiet for me because as I said before March is not high season). There are no big bushes in the park which means you can see very far. Animals cannot really hide, especially the giraffes are always visible.
Even the zebras were easy to spot.
The buffalo positioned themselves a bit further away from the main road. Easy to spot but difficult to photograph if you’re not using a DSLR with good zoom.
The antelopes made it extra easy to be spotted. It’s actually tricky, because when you’re driving through a park like this your eyes are fixed in the distance hoping to find the elusive rhino or other animals. You don’t bother to look at what’s right in front of you. And then suddenly you’re greeted by a group of antelopes.
I hadn’t found the rhinos when I reached the end of the park so that was quite disappointing, but the park attendant at the exit/entrance told me they were seen right by the entrance. So I went straight back in. How lucky! I managed to spot these beautiful animals (they even had a little baby).
Cheetah Enclosure
Apart from driving around the park, there is also an option to go into the cheetah enclosure, which is not inside the park but you have to go through a fence to get in. I recommend that you do this.
Not only because they might have little furry baby cheetahs.
But also because at extra cost you can enter the cheetah enclosure of “domesticated” cheetahs. One of the was Duma. You might have seen the film back in 2005. Duma the cheetah was spending is retirement of the movie business in Kragga Kamma Game Park. Unfortunately, he passed away in November 2011, eight months after my visit.
There are two more cheetahs in this enclosure, Mark and Monty. A year after my visit they attacked a lady who went into the closure. I don’t know whether it was a real attack or whether they were playing as the owner of the park suggested, but I think you can still enter the enclosure nevertheless. On the day that I visited they were very relaxed, of course these will always remain unpredictable wild animals and that’s why I had put “domesticated” in quotation marks.
Addo Elephant Park
After about an hour drive from Kragga Kamma you will arrive at Addo Elephant Park. It’s a completely different ball game here. First of all, you have to (and I repeat HAVE TO because they are endangered) avoid hitting or driving over Addo’s Flightless Dung Beetle. Apparently, they are the rarest species of dung beetle in the world. So you’ll be swerving on the road a lot, because even though they are endangered, there’s many of them in Addo.
Second of all, there are suddenly high bushes everywhere. This means you can’t see anything further than the road itself. You have to be lucky that an animal is peaking out of the bushes or sitting next to the road.
Third of all, the park is massive and clearly made for group tours. They have signs at the lunch areas, which show where the rare animals have been spotted. To get to this area though, you need a guide because it’s difficult to find and by the time you reach there the animal is gone. I found out in Sri Lanka when I went this year (2015) how invaluable a guide is on a safari like this – I will obviously write about this in a future post.
I didn’t spot the lions, the hyenas, the leopards and I don’t remember seeing zebras in this park. However, one thing you can easily spot around 5pm at the end of the day, are the elephants. They will all be on their way to the watering holes. If you park your car near one of the watering holes you’ll be surrounded by elephants. You’ll feel so puny among the huge animals (especially if you’re in a sedan car like I was).
Conclusion
These two parks can easily be visited on a day trip from J-bay like I did. Definitely don’t miss out on Kragga Kamma Game Park. It’s so much smaller and easier to navigate your way around and to find animals. You don’t have to book tours in either of the parks, so you can drive your own vehicle around. In Kragga Kamma I can heartily advise this and in Addo Elephant Park you’d be better off going on an organized tour.
