Travel in South Africa – overwhelming dunes and wild animals

Colchester

After another 400 km I arrived in Colchester. The first thing I thought about it was: Why would you come here? 😀 There’s really nothing. Just a gas station, a small supermarket and one pub. But nevertheless there are some things to explore around Colchester.

I think most people come here to visit the Addo Elephant National Park. It’s a safari park that is popular for its elephants but you can also see many other animals there. In one area of the park you can go even by your own car.
But I wanted to visit the Schotia Game Reserve, which is a private park right next to Addo. You can do only guided tours there but you will definitely see all the animals, because the guides know exactly where to go 😉

River Mouth and Beach

But before I went on my safari I had to check out something else that would blow my mind.

The people in my accommodation told me about the river mouth and the beach. Colchester is located on a river, that you can walk along about 4 km on a beautiful path that leads you directly to the beach. I didn’t really know what I had to expect. But what I saw there was so breathtaking……

…A beautiful beach with white sand. You’re totally alone there with the ocean. There were no other people. So I had the feeling I would own the whole beach 😀
I’ve never seen a river run into the ocean before. It is really impressive to see. I even had goosebumps and tears in my eyes 🙂

So I decided to spend my day here. Luckily I had some snacks with me and some balloons to play around 😉

If you ever come to Colchester or near by, you HAVE to go to that beach. It’s really worth the trip. And if you don’t want to walk the whole 4 km, you can go to the beach by car and have your walk right there 😉

Schotia Private Game Reserve

As I mentioned in the beginning I also went to Schotia to go on safari. It was the first time that I did something like that. So I was really excited about it. The weather wasn’t that good on that day, but with the rain and the open jeep it all had a really adventurous feeling.

It didn’t take much time and I saw the first animals. Buffalos, elephants, antelopes, giraffes…. To see the giraffes even closer my guide even went out of the jeep with my group. That was pretty scary but really adventurous and impressing at the same time.

After a small break, we went to the other part of the park, where the animals lived, that I was waiting to see all the time. LIONS!!!
It was so exciting. The lions came so close to our jeep. And, as I said, it was an open jeep. I got really thrilled by these majestic animals. That feeling lasted even for the next days and weeks 😀

After the tour you also get dinner in the park which is really cool, because when you leave the park it’s already dark and you can look for the animals with huge searchlights. The darkness, the wind that blew through my hair and even the cold rain in my face made me feel so free in this moment like never before. Even when I think about it now the feeling comes back 🙂

The whole trip is really an adventure and I would really recommend you to do it. You will be impressed for the next days, weeks, years….. 😀

The dunes and the safari were definitely my favorite highlights of my whole trip. So even if you think the small cities in South Africa have nothing to offer, they will blow your mind if you have a closer look 😉