Tembe Elephant Park — Watering Hole

Tembe Elephant Park sits in the far northeast corner of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on the Mozambique border — a remote sand-forest wilderness that protects some of the largest elephants left on the continent. This camera watches a central waterhole where Tembe's famous tuskers come to drink. The park was created in 1983 to protect elephants moving between South Africa and Mozambique, and a few of its old bulls carry tusks heavy enough to put them among Africa's last "great tuskers." The dry season (May–September) brings the most reliable viewing, when animals depend on the waterhole and the bush thins out. Dawn and dusk are prime — elephant, nyala, suni antelope, buffalo, and the occasional lion or leopard appear in the cooler hours. South Africa runs ten hours ahead of Hawaii, so plan your watching around southern-African daylight. Tembe is one of the few places protecting the rare sand-forest habitat and its specialty wildlife, including the tiny suni antelope and over 340 bird species. It's co-managed with the local Tembe community, an early and influential model for conservation that shares benefits with the people who live alongside the wildlife.