In this episode, I describe my last trip to South Africa to Port Elizabeth (now called Gqeberha) in 2007. I describe my mixed feelings as I board the plane from J'burg to Port Elizabeth alongside people handing in their rifles in a permanently-designated gun lane. I was attending an international conservation biology conference while finishing my Ph.D. However, at the same time there was a hunting competition and a large game auction happening at the same time in the region. Such conflicting agendas - conservation, hunting and game farming - all big money earners in their own right.

While I was within the district, I visited Addo Elephant National Park. The third largest park in RSA is famous for >600 elephants, 400 Cape buffalo and nearly 50 black rhino. The park has the title of being the only park to host the Big 7 after it has picked up neighbouring marine reserves that also have whales and great white sharks and two islands of St Croix Island and Bird Island that houses penguins, seals and many Cape gannets and crowned cormorants. It is also famous for the largest population of wingless dung beetle (Circellium bachuss) that has an important ecological relationship between itself and the elephants - moving the incredible amounts of elephant dung deposited by over 600 individuals back into the soil along with accompanied seeds that have survived an elephant's intestinal tract. The dung beetles have a right of way in this park.

I found the region very pleasant with a the level of safety being much better than the bigger cities of Johannesburg and cape Town. Besides the conflicting areas of interest, this area is a definite place to visit on a trip to South Africa.