National Park of the Month - Addo Elephant National Park

The original section of the park was founded in 1931,[1] in part due to the efforts of Sydney Skaife, in order to provide a sanctuary for the eleven remaining elephants in the area. The park has proved to be very successful and currently houses more than 450 elephants and a large number of other mammals.

Expansion
The original park has subsequently been expanded to include the Woody Cape Nature Reserve that extends from the Sundays River mouth towards Alexandria and a marine reserve, which includes St. Croix Island and Bird Island, an important breeding habitat for gannets and penguins, not to mention a large variety of other marine life. Bird Island is home to the world's largest breeding colony of gannets - about 120,000 birds - and also hosts the second largest breeding colony of African penguins, the largest breeding colony being St Croix island. This forms part of the plan to expand the 1,640 km² Addo National Elephant Park into a 3,600 km² Greater Addo Elephant National Park.

The expansion has meant not only that the park contains five of South Africa's seven major vegetation zones (biomes) but also that it is probably the only park in the world to house the so-called "Big 7" (elephant, rhinoceros, lion, buffalo, leopard, whale and great white shark) in their natural habitat.

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Elephant Sanctuary - Hartebeestpoort

The Elephant Sanctuary provides a safe haven for our elephants and offers a unique platform for guest education and interaction.

All our programs are guest and elephant driven, which means the most important part of our operation is to ensure happy elephants and satisfied guests. The close encounter with elephants you experience at The Elephant Sanctuary truly is one of a kind.

All our elephants are African Elephants (Loxodonta Africana) whose trust we’ve gained through our unique reward based training. We believe in forming bonds between humans and elephants. To this end, all our elephants are exercised and stimulated daily, which provides a firm foundation for trust.

The Elephant Sanctuary is a family orientated operation catering for both young and old. We focus on education through interaction, so you will not only learn a lot about elephants, but also get to touch, feel, feed, walk trunk-in-hand and even ride these magnificent animals. Elephants are highly intelligent and delightful – when meeting them you will discover that each one has a different character, personality and temperament.

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City of the Month - Pretoria

Pretoria - The Capital of South Africa. Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital. Pretoria is contained within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as one of several constituent former administrations (among which also Centurion and Soshanguve). Pretoria itself is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Tshwane" in a controversial proposed name change, the status of which is still being decided as of 2011.

The city's original name was Pretoria Philadelphia ("Pretoria of brotherly love"). It gave its name to the Pax Praetoriana, referring to the country's relative stability.

Pretoria in South Africa is popularly known as The Jacaranda City.

The Southern Transvaal Ndebele occupied the river valley, which was to become the location of the city of Pretoria, by around 1600.[3]

During the difaqane in Natal, another band of refugees arrived in this area under the leadership of Mzilikazi. However, they were forced to abandon their villages in their flight from a regiment of Zulu raiders in 1832.

Pretoria itself was founded in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius, a leader of the Voortrekkers, who named it after his father Andries Pretorius. The elder Pretorius had become a national hero of the Voortrekkers after his victory over the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River. Andries Pretorius also negotiated the Sand River Convention (1852), in which Britain acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal. It became the capital of the South African Republic (ZAR) on 1 May 1860. The founding of Pretoria as the capital of the South African Republic can be seen as marking the end of the Boers' settlement movements of the Great Trek.

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National Park of the Month - Bontebok National Park

Bontebok National Park is a species-specific national park in South Africa. It was established in 1961 to ensure the preservation of the bontebok. It is the smallest of South Africa's national parks, covering an area of 27.86 km² The park is part of the Cape Floristic Region, which is a World Heritage Site. The park is located 6 km south of Swellendam, in the foothills of the Langeberg Mountains. It is bordered to the south by the Breede River.

Other conservation at the park includes the protection of the endangered fynbos veld type and the coastal renosterveld, one of the largest remaining "renosterveld islands", which contains several plant species that are found nowhere else in the world. In total, the park has nearly 500 grasses and other plant species. Other indigenous species at the park include the clawless otter, Stanley's bustard and the blue crane. Rheboks, Cape Grysboks, duikers, red hartebeests and mountain zebras can also be found there. There are over 200 bird species.

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City of the month - Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa. The city the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many government offices are located. The city is famous for its harbour as well as its natural setting in the Cape floral kingdom, including such well-known landmarks as Table Mountain and Cape Point. Cape Town is also Africa's most popular tourist destination.

Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town was originally developed by the Dutch East India Company as a victualling station for Dutch ships sailing to Eastern Africa, India, and the Far East. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in South Africa.

Today it is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, reflecting its role as a major destination for immigrants and expatriates to South Africa.

Highlights in Cape Town include:
The V&A Waterfront
Table Mountain
Robben Island
Cape Town Castle
Company Gardens
Signal Hill
Camps Bay
Number of fine beaches

Cape Town is within a forty minute drive from:
Houtbay
Chapman's Peak
Cape Point
Cape Peninsula National Park
Simons Town and Boulders Beach
The Cape Winelands

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The Big Five

The phrase Big Five game was coined by white hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. The term is still used in most tourist and wildlife guides that discuss African wildlife safaris.

The African Elephant - Loxodonta africa
A very large herbivore having thick, almost hairless skin, a long, flexible, prehensile trunk, upper incisors forming long curved tusks of ivory, and large, fan-shaped ears.

Black Rhinoceros - Diceros bicornis
A large, thick-skinned herbivore having one or two upright horns on the nasal bridge. Rhinoceros may refer to both Black Rhinoceros and White rhinoceros.

Cape Buffalo - Syncerus caffer
A large horned bovid. Buffalo are sometimes reported to kill more people in Africa than any other animal, although the same claim is also made of hippos and crocodiles.[6] It is considered the most dangerous of the Big Five.

Lion - Panthera leo
A large carnivorous feline of Africa and northwest India, having a short tawny coat, a tufted tail, and, in the male, a heavy mane around the neck and shoulders.

Leopard - Panthera pardus
A large, carnivorous feline having either tawny fur with dark rosette-like markings or black fur.

Places I would like to visit in Southern Africa

Sossusvlei, Namibia

Sossusvlei is located in Namibia south from the capital Windhoek. It is a salt and clay pan surrounded by high red dunes located in the southern part of the Namib Desert, in the Namib-Naukluft National Park of Namibia. Sossusvlei is well-known for their red dunes which offer great landscape photographic opportunities. Best time will be just as the sun rises or sets providing bright red colours mixed with black of the shadows. A number of private lodges are available in the area. Namibia Wildlife Resorts offer less expensive options.

Etosha National Park, Namibia

The Etosha National is found North of Windhoek and was established in 1907. At that time it was the largest game reserve in the world. Due to political changes it is now slight less than a quarter of its original area. The Etosha Pan dominates the park. The salt pan desert is roughly 130 km long and as wide as 50 km in places. The salt pan is usually dry, but fills with water briefly in the summer, when it attracts pelicans and flamingos in particular. Perennial springs attract a variety of animals and birds throughout the year, including the endangered Black Rhinoceros and the endemic Black-faced Impala. The best time to visit Etosha is at the end of winter and early spring when most of the animals concentrate around the remaining water. As soon as the summer rain starts to fall the animals will spread out over the area.

Richtersveld

The Richtersveld is a mountainous desert landscape characterised by rugged kloofs and high mountains, situated in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province. It is full of changing scenery from flat sandy plains, to craggy sharp mountains of volcanic rock and the lushness of the Orange River, which forms the border with neighbouring Namibia. Located in South Africa's northern Namaqualand, this arid area represents a harsh landscape where water is a great scarcity and only the hardiest of life forms survive. A favourite amongst nature travellers to South Africa, the landscape is sometimes described as "martian". Though barren and desolate at first glance, closer examination reveals the area to be rich in desert life forms, with an array or unique species specially adapted for survival.


Namaqualand during flower season

Namaqualand is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa. Namaqualand is quite popular with both local and international tourists during early springtime, when for a short period this normally arid area becomes covered with a kaleidoscope of colour during the flowering season. This is known throughout South Africa as the Namaqualand daisy season, when orange and white daisies, as well as hundreds of other flowering species, spring up from a previously barren landscape. This is a great opportunity for colourful landscape photographs.

Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta in Botswana is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea. The Okavango delta is both a permanent and seasonal home to a wide variety of wildlife which is now a popular tourist attraction.

Species include African Bush Elephant, African Buffalo, Hippopotamus, Lechwe, Topi, Blue Wildebeest, Giraffe, Nile crocodile, Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Brown Hyena, Spotted Hyena, Greater Kudu, Sable Antelope, Black Rhinoceros, White Rhinoceros, Plains Zebra, Warthog and Chacma Baboon. Notably the endangered African Wild Dog still survives within the Okavango Delta, exhibiting one of the richest pack densities in Africa. The delta also includes over 400 species of birds, including African Fish Eagle, Crested Crane, Lilac-breasted Roller, Hammerkop, Ostrich, and Sacred Ibis. The majority of the estimated 200,000 large mammals in and around the delta are not year-round residents. They leave with the summer rains to find renewed fields of grass to graze on and trees to browse, and then make their way back as winter approaches.

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