Bless the rains down in Africa
Woke to the rolling thunder this morning ! Must admit that we hadn't really checked the weather forecast for our last day in Addo. However, it was actually a beautiful morning as we were quite sheltered on our patio and thoroughly enjoyed the wildlife views including a mommy and tiny baby bushbuck walking past in stealth mode in the "garden" in front of us.
After our morning's tea & rusks with added jam on toast and a fantastic hot shower (bathroom may be tiny, but great powerful shower), we got started with our day's drive around the park.
We finally spotted the Spotted Hyena - what a character she is... trying to carry around the hugest "bone" just like a dog... but this bone was not only a leg bone it was attached to most of the skeleton.
Excitement grew as we watched 2 Black-backed jackals circling and "attacking" a thorn tree. One of them eventually jumped right in and bounced out with it's little prey - it was so quick, could have been a mole rat, devoured in moments, he then sat there licking his lips whilst his mate had clearly missed out on that meal.
Our drive took us up to the Zuurberg lookout and then through the Mponzi loop with nothing other than the odd warthog. Clearly the animals were hiding from the rain.
We informed the random tourists at Jack's picnic site that they would see more around Harpoor area because they too had not seen much today. And right we were!
Our first take at Harpoor Dam gave us just one elephant, so we pushed on a little further to the dam around the corner and what luck we had... fast approaching was a huge family of ellies ... they marched all the little ones right on past us, it was amazing to see the protection of the herd and the interaction with a lonely bull at the rear end. They quickly crossed the Harpoor Dam area and we headed back to our Rondavel.
Once again ellies in "our" dam, could just about see them, mostly submerged, by standing tiptoes on our neighbour's patio wall. We had missed seeing them in the daylight, but still great to hear them splashing about.
All in all, a great end to our National Park fix albeit the replacement for Kruger, Addo was still teaming with wildlife.
Tomorrow we will pack up and head to our next favourite destination with our sights set for the Sedgefield MARKET on Saturday.
## Wildlife seen
**Birds**
- Brown-throated Martin
- Green Wood-hoopoe
- Blue Crane
- Black-headed Heron
- Wattled Starling
- Southern Masked Weaver
- Southern Double-collared Sunbird
- Secretarybird
- Fiscal Flycatcher
- Klaas's Cuckoo
- Crowned Lapwing
- Brown-hooded Kingfisher
- Red-knobbed Coot
- Common Moorhen
- Fork-tailed Drongo
- Blacksmith Lapwing
- Red-faced Mousebird
- Cape Weaver
- African Hoopoe
- Red-winged Starling
- African Spoonbill
- Grey Heron
- Yellow-billed Duck
- Cardinal Woodpecker
**Mammals**
- Warthog
- Striped Mouse
- Elephant
- Bushbuck
- Large Grey Mongoose
- Warthog
- Burchell's Zebra
- Spotted Hyena
