Days 7-10 - Avoca River, Addo Elephant Park, Wilderness Beach

On Friday morning, after our vans had left for their return trip to Stellenbosch, a big tour bus arrived in JBay to bring 24 of us to our next location. After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the Avoca River Cabins where we'd be spending the next 2 nights. We slept in tiny huts with just enough room for beds, right alongside the Avoca River. We spent the day swimming, canoeing, and sitting by the fire.

On Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to Addo Elephant Park for our 9am game drive in an open air vehicle. The drive was really cool and we got to see lots of different animals. We only saw 2 of South Africa's 'Big 5' - elephants and lions - but we were told that sighting the lions is rare so we were pleased about that. The park is absolutely huge and there are only 10 lions in the whole thing, but we were able to see 3 of them (all roughly 2 years old). The pictures of lions below were taken by a friend of mine who had a professional camera with her, so they're a lot nicer than my shots. The animal below that you may not recognize is a kudu, which is the second largest antelope in the world and can jump 9 feet in the air. And the last picture is Pumba the warthog. After the drive we had lunch before getting in our own tour bus and driving through again on the paved roads. We didn't see anything new, but we spent some more time at the watering hole where the elephants congregate.

Once we were back at the cabins we relaxed and enjoyed the river and the camp fire again. In the morning we drove for about 6 hours, with stops along the way, until we made it to the Wilderness Beach House Backpackers where we'd be staying the night. Me and a couple friends explored the nearby beach once we were settled, and we saw the biggest jellyfish we'd ever seen washed up on the shore. They were at least 18 inches across and had huge tentacles. We went back up to the house for a delicious lamb roast and spend the rest of the night sitting by the fire. In the morning we left for our last leg of the trip and after another 6 hours in the car we were back in Stellenbosch. It was an amazing 10 days on the road but it was good to be back home. It seemed like forever ago that we first got in the vans at 5am last weekend, yet the trip went by too fast.