My Addo
My Addo - Accommodation, Information and News from Addo and Kirkwood

Africanos Inn Bar, Grill & Barn is the only three star graded Hotel situated in the Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, South Africa near the village of Addo, a totally malaria free area.

Africanos Inn Bar, Grill & Barn offers upmarket accommodation in tastefully furnished luxury chalets each with en suite bathrooms and lounge areas.

Africanos Inn Bar, Grill & Barn is the only three star graded Hotel situated in the Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, South Africa near the village of Addo, a totally malaria free area.

Africanos Inn Bar, Grill & Barn offers upmarket accommodation in tastefully furnished luxury chalets each with en suite bathrooms and lounge areas.

For that special out of town wedding our venue has a 150 seat on site chapel and our barn type theatre can seat up to 300 people for a fantastic reception.

Our Conference Facilities are ideally suited for corporate functions, product launches and team building events.

The world renowned Addo Elephant National Park is 10 minutes and the Port Elizabeth Airport 45 minutes drive away.

Also included in the sale is a 4 bedroomed 3 bathroom house of which 2 are en suite as well as a 2 bedroomed granny flat on the same property.

Asking Price £1 000 000.00 (alan[at]myaddo.co.za for more info.)

www.MyAddo.co.za: THE willingness to learn, openness and welcoming nature of teachers at a small school in Addo have left a lasting impression on a family from the US who spent three weeks with them.

Eileen and Larry Kugler, along with their daughter Sarah, 26, visited the AV Bukani Primary School in Addo‘s Nomathamsanqa location to help the teachers to encourage pupils‘ interest in reading.

Larry said: “This school is wonderful. The teachers are open and willing to try new things. We specifically worked with teachers to teach them how to help learners learn to read and write.”

Sarah, who is a teacher trainer back home, said it was amazing to see how, despite the lack of resources, challenges at the school were overcome and teachers were willing to learn. “It is frustrating not to have enough money to support people,” she said.

The family lived in a house in the township while they were at the school.

Sarah said: “We lived five minutes away from school and we loved our stay because we were taken good care of.

“They kept us busy with visits to the elephant park, playing with the kids and holding singing concerts for us.”

Eileen said their days typically started with professional development and teacher training. She specifically taught computer classes. “The teachers were so eager to learn about computers, so much so we had to have lunch-hour classes.”

Eileen said one thing she loved about the teachers was that they didn‘t blame anyone for the lack of resources. “They made do with what they had.”

Larry said they wanted people back home in the US to have an insight about South African communities. “The people of this country have a sense of community.”

And Sarah felt they were very lucky to have had this opportunity. She said: “People here have great respect for each other.

“While people might see all the negative things, we saw the richness of life and we were happy to be part of it.”

The family said they were grateful to Calabash Tours who made it possible for them to choose a school that they could visit. Eileen said: “We visited a British website on volunteering in schools, they put us in contact with Calabash Tours and that is how we ended up coming here.”

AV Bukani principal Zilindile Thambo said the school gained a lot from their visit.

Dieketseng Maleke href="http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n20_15082008.htm">HERALD REPORTER

www.MyAddo.co.za: FIRES in the Eastern Cape are under control although the Zuurberg blaze is still moving across the mountains north of Port Elizabeth.

Anthony Kasinga, provincial manager for the specialist parastatal Working on Fire , said fires in Grahamstown and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality were under control but defence force helicopters had been 'water-bombing' the Zuurberg flames, which are running along the north-west edge of the Addo Elephant National Park.

"At the moment the wind is okay but the fire is still quite substantial. We are hoping the wind does not change and push the fire deep into the park."

Park spokesperson Megan Taplin said the fire was spreading westward across the Zuurberg, devouring fynbos and grasslands on the remote slopes and tops of the mountains.

"The underlying problem is we have had no rain for four months and it is very dry. We have also been experiencing strong winds, which keep changing direction."

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, which has been ravaged by fires this week, attended to only three veld fires yesterday, none of them serious.

Municipal spokesperson Lourens Schoeman said the fires were in the Circular Drive/Overbaakens area, Draaifontein at Greenbushes, and a large area at Colleen Glen, where efforts to douse it were hampered by extremely difficult terrain.

Twenty-two families, comprising 100 people, who lost everything when a fire razed their Chris Hani informal settlement homes on Tuesday, are now staying with family or friends after they were initially housed in the Mathew Goniwe hostel, he said.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country remains on high alert for fires .

The Herald, Avusa Group News

www.MyAddo.co.za: More than 30 people - most of them Dutch and British tourists - were on Tuesday evacuated from a luxury resort overlooking the Addo Elephant National Park.

This came after a fire destroyed 35 chalets.

The book keeper at the Zuurberg Mountain Village resort, Mary Ann Endley told News24 on Wednesday that a camp fire adjacent to the resort got out of control on Sunday and spread across the landscaped gardens.

At first only vegetation was affected.

"On Monday it was under control," Endley said. "We had 85 firefighters including our people helping to put it out, and fire engines."

Endley and owner Henry Alant, who both live in Port Elizabeth, left the resort at about 20:00 after giving the firefighters supper.

"Before we got to Port Elizabeth the wind had changed and the fire came roaring up," said Endley.

R10m damage

Within 15 minutes the thatched chalets caught fire. All 35 burned down. The newly-built conference centre and chapel were also destroyed as was the cottage Alant uses when he is at the lodge.

Endley said the fynbos and bushes, dry from the winter months, "exploded" and sent sparks flying.

The tourists were heading to their chalets after dinner when the fire turned. All were evacuated and given alternative accommodation at Addo and in Port Elizabeth.

Alant said although all of the tourists had escaped unhurt, many lost their personal belongings.

He put the damage at about R10m.

Meanwhile, other fires continued in the Zuurberg mountains according to head of Disaster Management, Mandisa Nohashe. She said the cause of these fires were not known and fire workers were struggling to bring it under control after the wind changed direction on Tuesday night.

Source: Verashni Pillay, News24

www.MyAddo.co.za: Facts and figures excerpted from the Addo Elephant National Park's Report on the April – June period:

* Two new black rhino calves were recorded: one on a camera trap and one during an aerial census
* The Coast Care programme removed 2584kg of waste from the Sundays beach area
* 1 585 children and 108 adults participated in environmental education programmes in the Park
* The unit occupancy in Addo rest camp rose (compared to last year) by 1.1% to 84.8% while
* Matyholweni's occupancy rose by 5.6% to 47.3%. Camping occupancy rose by 5.6%
* The use of guided game drives (seats sold) rose by 6.7% compared to the same period last year
* There were 28 871 visitors to the Park from April to June, representing a drop of 4.6% compared to the same period in 2007. This is the result of the Easter weekend – a very popular holiday time falling in March (whereas it was in April last year) as well as the effect of an increase in fuel costs
* Only 36 mm of rain was recorded in the Addo section of the Park, compared to the long term, average for April to June of 78.6 mm
* Four of the Park's staff received Long-term Service Awards: 25 years of service for both Ranger Sergeant Melvin Tambo and Field Ranger Gibson Tambo; 25 years for Trade/Admin Clerk Cheryl Momberg and 20 years for Hospitality Manager Dawid Momberg

www.MyAddo.co.za: Disease-free buffalo from Addo Elephant National Park once again received top prices on the Kirkwood
Wildlife Auction, raising funds for the SANParks Park Development Fund, used to subsidise the
expansion of national parks.

The auction, held on 28 June 2008 as part of the Kirkwood Wildlife Festival, saw buffalo reaching top
prices of R180 000 per animal for a family group. The top price for a buffalo bull was R127 000. Four
spotted hyena were sold on the auction at R5 600 per hyena. Red hartebeest, black wildebeest and
eland from Mountain Zebra National Park were also sold on the auction. Over R3.36 million was raised
in total.

White rhino from Kruger National Park were sold on catalogue with one of the rhino bulls generating a
whopping R640 000.

www.MyAddo.co.za: Addo Elephant National Park's lion population has swelled by one following the birth of a cub, now about two months old, to Kamkwa, the oldest of the lionesses in the Park.

The cub has been seen following its mother, usually accompanied by her first female offspring named Gina, in the area of the Park known as Wayne's Valley. A number of visitors, rangers and guides have reported sightings of the cub since it was about one month old. It is unusual that a lioness will allow her cub to accompany her from such a young age. The latest addition brings the number of lions in the Park to twelve: double the number of lions originally introduced to the Park. The cubs of Ardlam – a male and a female - are now one and a half years old.

The lions' fiercest competitors, spotted hyena, are also doing well in the Park, with numbers estimated at over 20. Eight spotted hyena were originally introduced to the Park in 2003 and 2004. Visitors have also spotted hyena and their cubs periodically, especially at a den site located in the area between Rooidam and Gwarrie Pan.

www.MyAddo.co.za: In 2006 Phindi Kema gambled, not only by leaving the corporate world, but also by sinking her life savings into a citrus farm in Addo, a farming community about 80km outside Port Elizabeth. It was a fruitful move and she is now a successful citrus exporter.

Last year alone Kema managed to export more than 35000 cartons of citrus to the UK, Japan, Russia, Netherlands and Israel. Based on these volumes she is SA's leading black citrus exporter.

Kema, who comes from a family with a strong farming background, was inspired to return to the land by her last job as a senior manager at a Cape Town winery between 2005 and 2006.

"The company exposed me to viticulture and I realised that I had found my true passion. It dawned on me that I've got to live my dream. That's why I left my job and came to Eastern Cape with nothing. If you are to be happy in life you have to follow your gut," she says.

But little did she know what was awaiting her after initiating negotiations with the government to acquire the 40ha farm, with 22000 trees.

She says it took about nine months of blood, sweat and tears to seal the deal with the agriculture and land affairs department, a process that taught her to set realistic goals, a critical lesson for any business to succeed.

"It's very difficult to deal with the government; like sucking water out of a rock. Government is not a business, your timeframes are not their timeframes. If you are not careful, the red tape, bureaucracy and protocol can destroy your business," she says.

After getting all the paperwork out of the way, Kema was faced with the challenges encountered by many farmers on a daily basis.

"Many of us business people tend to focus on sealing deals, forgetting what lies ahead. As a result, following the honeymoon after sealing the deal, I was not mentally and financially prepared. Suddenly I was confronted with issues of working capital, escalating input costs and labour issues. To farm you need resources, tractors, diesel and labour."

After two years of trial and error, Kema says she is still learning the many pitfalls of the citrus export industry.

"I thought that my task was to produce the fruit and sell it to the agents who would export it or do whatever they wish with it," she says. But she soon discovered that it is not that simple in the export business. "I couldn't understand why you have to prepare the crop for 12 months and deliver it to a pack house so that an export agent can brand it as their own without paying for it. You get your money after about 12 weeks, and they will still deduct packing, transport and marketing costs. You don't even know how much the customer paid for your fruit.

"The fact that I must part with my fruit, without any deposit so that I can continue farming or have cash flow, not even any guarantee of what I will get, makes farming nigh on impossible."

Kema says while she is not out to prove a point, she will be happy if her example dispels misguided impressions that women cannot farm successfully.

She says South African citrus is able to hold its own internationally because it has a good reputation, but even so competition from traditional citrus producing countries such as Spain and Israel makes life difficult for local exporters.

"Government must incentivise all commercial farmers if we are to produce enough food for the country and compete globally. As much as we export, it is vital to produce more for our country."

Recently Kema scooped The Herald, Absa Corporate Business Bank and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Business School Business Person of the Year award in the editor's choice category. She has also been nominated for the prestigious Shoprite Checkers Woman of the year. But she refuses to take all the credit. Instead, she attributed all her success to her staff.

"These guys taught me a lot about farming citrus of excellent quality for export markets. They know far more about farming than I do. Corporate people taking over new businesses tend to forget about the staff -- at their peril. The workers are your most valuable asset, they determine the failure or success of your business," she says.

Kema has already exported more than 20000 cartons of lemons, navels and nova this year and she is hoping for another bumper season.

"This year's market is looking good because of drought in other countries. Lower production yields in those countries have boosted the prices we fetch."

Source: Sipho Masondo, AllAfrica

www.MyAddo.co.za: It is always so great and exciting to read what other people say about Addo.

This entry from Mike and Mad's endless summer!

We arrived at Addo Elephant park, still feeling rough but on the mend. We found our little Rondavel, a circular building with a wicker conical roof, which overlooked a flood lit waterhole. Mad sighed and said “Nothing there”, to which I replied “No but there are three large Elephants on the hillside!” Now that’s what you call delivering the goods! We set out almost straight away for our first game drive inside the park, it was great, green bushland, rolling hills, waterholes dotted around and animals wandering. We were only out for a couple of hours during which we saw, Warthogs, Ostriches, Meer cats, Antelopes, Tortoises, Jackals and Elephants! Not bad for a first outing! We even got to see a Black Rhino and it’s baby later in the evening from our Rondavel!

The following day we were in the park for the whole day having personal audiences with Buffalo and Elephants who graced us with their presence, along with numerous other animals that we managed to sight. Such good fun trying to find them!

We staked out the flood lit waterhole from a hide located right beside it and again the Rhino and baby came. We were only 15 – 20 metres from them and they could smell/hear us, looking in our direction as they drank. So cool!

We were so stoked and were sad to be leaving the next day but in the style that we arrived Addo gave us a finale, we staked out the larger waterhole and found a large herd of Buffalo and then a gathering of about 50 Elephants! With some tiny little babies in tow! There was a big stand off as we saw a huge bull Elephant approaching from the other direction, it was massive. He walked around the waterhole looking right at us passing about 15 metres away from us, scary as hell as these are totally wild and this is their playground. The rest of the elephants were huddled together apart from another large male, they sized each other up and we thought there was going to be a great battle but luckily the biggest of the two was in charge of all of them. He selected a female and a baby from the herd and took them to the waterhole to drink, while the others stayed back. The other male was ever watchful of us. An amazing social interaction!

After recovering from all that we had seen and felt we said good bye to Addo and set off to Port Elizabeth.

We stayed the night in a basic backpackers then flew up to our next big stop, the Kruger national park!

Click HERE to see Mike and Mad's Addo Photographs

From the Africa Safari Blog:

We then headed towards Addo Elephant National Park situated in the malaria–free province. Addo is a sanctuary to lots of game species, an abundance of birdlife and of course the largest herds of elephants. You can also have the chance to see leopards, lions, buffalos, spotted hyenas, a variety of antelope species, lots of warthogs and the unique flightless Dung Beetles. The Dung Beetles are everywhere in the park!

The following day was the end of my trip, so we left Addo to Port Elizabeth for my flight back to Cape Town. This was an amazing experience and I cant wait to go on my next Jenman Safari!

www.MyAddo.co.za: When last did you hear anyone say; "bee-geebers"? Yup, been a very long time for me too, so I just had to let you know about Ms. Specht, a middle school teacher who enjoys traveling. This summer she is in South Africa and Lesotho and presently visiting the Addo Elephant Park:

Tonight we are staying in Addo Elephant National Park in the cutest cabin you could ever imagine. It has a thatched roof, Steven suggested an elephant might try to eat it while we are sleeping-which would seriously scare the bee-geebers out of me. sleeping-which would seriously scare the bee-geebers out of me.

The cabin has two beds and a pull out coach, a full kitchen, a bathroom, an adorable deck in the front, and a space heater - all for R605 (about $75). It is a little pricier than we have been paying, but definitely worth it. We were able to buy some groceries and after a cup-a-soup dinner I am all set. Tomorrow morning we will head out early to participate in a game drive and hopefully see a lion, as well as the elephants that we will most certainly see.

See the Photographs here.