Knysna Elephant Park

6/27/09
Sarah and I planned to check out the Garden Route this weekend. The Garden Route follows the coast of South Africa. Along the way tourists will find a plethora of things to do. The most popular are the sky diving and bungy jumping. We agreed to keep our trip a little simpler. I had asked Sister Sara at RCCH what the one single best thing to do on the garden route was. She didn’t even hesitate to say Knysna and the Kysna Elephant park. Since her suggestion some of the newer connect kids had done the garden route and raved about the park. We booked a room and a car and set out early Saturday morning. The drive was gorgeous…at first. Mountains, fields, and more sheep than you could ever dream of. Sheep were everywhere. Little ones, big ones, and even rams. The babies were adorable! But after about 30 mins of field and sheep, it just got old. The fields and sheep stretched for miiiiles (kiloooometers) with no sign of civilization. About 3 hours into our trip we stumbled upon a farm/restaurant. The weather was gorgeous so we sat outside an ate with wonderful views of fields and mountains.

We finally arrived in Knysna a little after 4pm (after over 6 hours of driving). Knysna is home to 15 orphaned and rescued ellies. The elephants are well looked after, trained, and cared for around the clock. At night, the elephants are led into a massive warehouse type of building which houses a giant pen for each of them. To our surprise, our room was a loft above these pens!! Our room was amazing. It had an almost ski lodge feel to it, with (classy) elephant décor and paraphernalia throughout. Our door opened directly onto the loft which overlooked the ellies. There was comfy furniture, tea, and the most fantastic view of the elephants. We dropped our things and headed out to the field with our guide. We had been told that the newest addition to the herd was only 7 days old! 7 days!! As we walked onto the field we could see the elephants tramping along. I noticed a very small ellie and asked if THAT was the baby. The guide laughed and said, “No, no. He is 2 years old.” It already seemed so tiny! He instructed me to look closer at the herd. As we got closer and the elephants continued to move around I saw the tiniest little figure underneath a massive elephant. It reached up to about just above her knee and never stayed more than 2 feet away from it’s mother. It actually spent the majority of the time directly underneath her. It was the most precious scene. The ellies were led over to u where we were able to feed and interact with them. We were instructed to hold the food (which was ¼ pieces of carrot, pineapple, and squash) in an open palm. The elephants would then lift it our of our hand. Or they would present their trunks to us and we would drop the food in. Their breath was incredibly warm. It was amazing to watch them maneuver their trunks so closely. What a fantastic appendage! The trunks literally mimick an arm (fully equipped with fingers!). The ellies lift, twist, pull, search, sniff, and discover with them. I’ve never been so close to so many elephants. They are MASSIVE. And they love affection. I was getting poked and explored with trunks from every angle. The little ones came up to about my chest and the tiniest little baby, Bibi, which means little girl, came up to my waist. She was about the size of my on all fours. That sounds big for 7 days but when you compare her to full grown elephants, its super tiny! It was a joy to watch her move around and explore the world. She reminded me a lot of a human toddler; fumbling with her steps and learning how to use her trunk, even almost loosing her balance a few times. It was ADORABLE and I was instantly in love. We then walked back to the pens with the elephants. The field experience was overwhelming, awesome, a little scary and deeply moving.

sarah in our loft above the ellies

For dinner, Sarah and I went into town. We stopped at the first sight of restaurants and walked until we found something we liked. We settled on a small place called Harrie B’s. The majority of it’s patrons were in the bar section watching a live band. We sat in the dinner section, and were the only customers there. Our waiter must have assumed we felt left out by this and insisted and showing us his magic tricks as alternative entertainment. It started when he asked about what we were doing in Cape Town blah blah and what we studied (were studying). I, in turn, asked him what he studied. When he said “magic” I laughed. I thought he was kidding. But then he continued to say he’d been studying it for 8 years. Oops. Sorry dude. His tricks were nothing great and actually began to border on weird. But at least we had a good laugh!

After dinner we showered and got comfy. I needed to grab something from the car and when I did, I was invited down to get a closer encounter with the ellies. After taking some pictures of Bibi, the keeper asked me if I wanted to feed the other (older) babies. I, of course, was happy to. He handed me a 2 liter coke bottle with a massive nipple on the top. It was filled with a milk formula similar to one given to human toddlers. The babies used their trunks to hold the bottle up and guzzled the entire thing in about 10 seconds. Afterwards, we sat out on our loft with tea and chocolate to watch our new friends settle in for the night. The elephants were either eating or sleeping. I was surprised at how graceful elephants lay themselves down. The go first on their back knees, then down on their elbows before slowly lowering their heads and backs to the ground beside them. The baby was actually the least graceful, plopping herself down whenever she got tired. SO CUTE!

2 year old ellie