Port Elizabeth Safari in Addo Elephant National Park
A port elizabeth safari offers access to one of South Africa's premier Big Seven reserves, home to over 600 African elephants alongside lion, buffalo, and the rare flightless dung beetle. Guided game drives traverse diverse terrain from dense Valley Bushveld to open plains, with sightings of elephant herds a near-daily occurrence. Port elizabeth safari tours depart early morning to maximize wildlife activity during cooler hours.
Addo Elephant National Park covers 1,640 square kilometres of malaria-free bushveld 72 kilometres north of Port Elizabeth, established in 1931 to protect the last eleven wild elephants in the Eastern Cape.
Today the reserve sustains more than 600 elephants alongside lions, buffalo, leopards, rhinos, southern right whales, and great white sharks — the only park on the continent to claim the Big Seven. The park's expansion between 2005 and 2009 incorporated marine zones and mountain fynbos, linking three distinct biomes under a single conservation mandate.
Port Elizabeth safari tours entering via the main R335 gate traverse dense spekboom thickets and open grasslands where elephant family groups drink at artificial waterholes engineered in the 1970s. The Hapoor section, opened to visitors in 2003, offers sightings of black rhino and the endangered flightless dung beetle, a species the park was partially designed to protect. Game-viewing loops extend 40 kilometres through the original Sundays River block, with raised hides at Hapoor Dam and Domkrag Dam providing elevated vantage points over seasonal pans.
The Zuurberg mountain section rises 750 metres above the valley floor, accessible through a separate gate on the park's northern boundary. Visitors equipped with 4x4 vehicles can follow the Zuurberg pass to montane fynbos where Cape mountain zebra graze on rocky slopes. The marine section, added in 2005, protects breeding grounds for southern right whales between June and October and cage-diving sites for great white sharks off St. Croix and Bird Islands.
Port Elizabeth safari lodges within the park boundaries include the government-run Gorah Elephant Camp and privately operated Bukela Game Lodge, both offering guided night drives unavailable to day visitors. The main rest camp at Addo provides self-catering chalets and a floodlit waterhole where nocturnal species including brown hyena and aardvark appear after sunset. Conservation fees fund anti-poaching patrols and ecological research programmes tracking elephant movement patterns across the expanded reserve.
9 hr
