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“A great little sanctuary ”

written by 4yorks on 19/04/2013

So I only booked two weeks at the sanctuary but I really wish id booked longer, I first arrived into port Elizabeth airport at 11am on Monday. I collected my luggage and was immediately met by Percy, the owner of the sanctuary, We had a small wait for one more volunteer to arrive then we were on our way.

It took about one hour to arrive at the sanctuary but it was a really nice, scenic drive through PE, past the beach front.

On arrival at the Sanctuary I was taken straight to the lodge to which I found out I would be sharing with two other people, a German and Australian guy. I made friends with them straight away and we are now pretty good Facebook friends.

Now in fareness, the sanctuary is in a pretty remote location and its not really possible to go into town on a night, its around 1 hour from PE and 45 minutes from J-BAY, However you do get most weekends off to go into town. I met a group of friends and on weekend we went into jeffreys bay, there is loads of shops and bars, we stayed in a hostel called island vibe, its £7 a night so really cheap, it only costs 50 Rand each way (a little over £3) so its extremely cheap.

Back at the sanctuary, you have a weekly rota and you usually switch between feeding and projects. Feeding is exactly what it says, you go into the cage and feed animals but its never the same animal, so you get a bit of variety. Projects means you do various projects around the park, when I was there I helped to build a fence and a new animal en closer, its really rewarding work knowing you are helping the animals and giving them somewhere to live.

You get three meals a day, breakfast at 8.30, Lunch a 12.30 and tea 18.30, but there is also a shop to buy drink, snacks ect, they are all reasonably priced and you pay weekly,

There is loads of activities to do on your days off, you can go on safari at Addo and Schotia Private game reserve, which is 1200rand, they pick you up, provide lunch and tea, and drop you back off, overall its great value for money, also you can go to the bungy bridge which costs 1050 rand including transport so very cheap.

I highly recommend the animal sanctuary but you need to stay for at least a month as there is loads to do and two weeks wasn't enough for me