The catch was that I had to get up at 5.30am as usual to go to the reserve first - which is in the opposite direction - for him to pick the guests up. The upside was that I got to muscle in on the coffee and freshly-baked muffins that are put out for the guests at 6.45am before they head out on morning game drives.
With all the guests on board, we got about half a mile down the road when the land rover started to lose power. It would still drive, but it was too risky to take it all the way to Addo in case we broke down. The field guide radioed in and was told to switch to the land rover that we use at the volunteers house. So, having got my butt out of bed early, we ended up going back to the house anyway where I could have carried on snoozing for another hour and a half.
Everyone piled out of the first land rover, but before we could get into the other one, it needed an impromptu clean. With my volunteer hat on, I went into "staff" mode and got all the spades, pick-axes, fence wire and assortment of other rubbish out as quickly as possible. It had been raining the night before, so all the seats were wet and needed wiping down with a blanket before the 5-star guests could be invited in.
I could see the looks of trepidation on their faces as we drove through Paterson to the house. There is a township that you pass by with tin shacks and small dwellings built out of concrete blocks. And first impressions of the volunteer house is that it does resemble a local penitentiary with its grey-painted exterior and barbed wire around the fence. This was possibly their first taste of the real Africa, as opposed to the manicured version that most tourists see.
But they seemed to take it in good spirits and consider it a bit of an adventure. I believe I feature heavily in some photos and video footage of the substitute land rover being prepared. I also regaled them with stories of giraffe identification and road maintenance to jolly them along.
All the land rovers that are used on the reserve have been modified especially for the safari industry. They have a canopy over the top and each row of seats is slightly higher - like in a theatre - so everyone has a good view. The windscreen can be pushed forward onto the bonnet so you get a better view of the game. And on the land rovers used for guests, there is a clear plastic sheet that bridges the gap between the canopy and the windscreen, to shield you from the wind blowing into your face as you drive along. This plastic sheet is missing on the land rover that we use, so there is no point trying to do anything fancy with your hair in the morning, because you end up looking pretty wild by the time we've driven at speed along the dusty roads to the reserve. By the time we'd arrived at Addo, our 5-star guests - some of whom were in their seventies - looked somewhat shell-shocked (not to mention completely dishevelled) by the experience.
The Addo park was set up in 1931. Prior to this, most of the huge elephant herds had been hunted throughout the Eastern Cape as they were considered a nuisance to local farmers. Indeed, a certain Major Pretorius was commissioned to get rid of the "menace" and very nearly succeeded until there was a public outcry when there were only 11 elephants left in the region. Addo was set up to protect and breed them and today there are around 450 elephants in the park.
Once past the entrance gate, the field guide drove straight to a water hole where he assured me that we were likely to see around 50 elephants frolicking and taking mud baths. How many elephants were there when we arrived? One. And he wasn't even doing anything that interesting. As it had been raining heavily the night before and was still relatively cool that morning, the animals had no need to come to the water hole. There was enough moisture out in the bush. There were a couple of warthogs who tried to put on a bit of a show, but frankly I felt a bit short-changed on the elephant viewings in an elephant park. However, we did see a lot more as we drove round other parts of the park, including one encounter that was so close, I thought he wanted to get in and drive.
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