Serengeti

 Friday 24 April

The place we are staying at is superb, we had a great view of the sunrise this morning and we had a sleep in as our game drive doesn’t start until 8 am. Better still we had hot water bottles in our bed. There is no heating or cooling in the tents.

We wonder what new adventures we will have today. We are getting on great with the Canadian couple Melissa and Jason. We decided that we would rotate our seating so that Jason and Melissa would have to put up with a different couple each day. 

The “main” road through the Serengeti is an unmade road with corrugations and deeper ruts so that you bounce along and then rock and roll in the worst areas. It is a bone rattling ride at 80 to 90 kmph! Once off the main road we are on dirt tracks which are fine when flat, but it is not flat all the time. It is dry and the vehicles create dust clouds as they go by, remember we have the roof raised so we can see out when animals are sighted.

Shortly after hitting the main road we come across elephants and giraffes, then we sight hippos and a Nile crocodile. About 70 minutes in we stop for a rest room break. We then head into the south east part of the Serengeti.

The landscape is grass plains with the occasional tree or rocky outcrop. The grass is about waist high so difficult to spot anything.  There does not seem to be much around but after 80 minutes of rocking and rolling we go to a rocky outcrop where there are a couple of vehicles stationary. There is a leopard resting in a tree but peering out over the plains. Our drive tells us it is on the lookout for prey. He moves around so he can see both sides and we get some great shots, but after 35 minutes we move on.

After a while we come across some Topi, then notice two wildebeest walking on their own, they must have missed the text message to start massing for the migration, we call them Dumb and Dumber! Further on there is a single file of 20+ zebras slowly walking along. As we near another rocky outcrop our driver thinks he saw something. It is a lioness, lying on her back in the rocks with her legs in the air. We stop to watch for a while, in the meantime the zebras keep pacing along about 500 meters from her. She raises her head and looks out, she just ignores us and the other vehicles that have arrived. She sees something and becomes very alert. She leaves the rocks and starts walking along the track we drove up on. We quickly follow as do the other vehicles. Sure enough Dumb and Dumber are walking down the track towards her, she weaves her way around some of the vehicles and heads into the long grass, she is in kill mode, the wildebeest are oblivious. She is less than 20 metres from them when they notice and turn to flee, she is on them in a flash and brings one down. She has her jaws clamped on its neck and a paw over its mouth, it is kicking wildly while on its back, but the lioness has a good piece of it. After about 5 to 10 minutes it is dead and the lioness starts to rip into its belly. Cannot believe we have now seen two kills. While watching Ann was saying go go and when I asked was that to the wildebeest she said no she was barracking for the lioness. Our driver says she is a mother and her cubs would be back in a cave in the rocks, he believes they would be too young to come and feed and are still relying on her milk.

Off we go in search of more excitement. On our way to a picnic lunch we start to see larger herds of animals. We have lunch in the middle of nowhere under a lone tree. After lunch we come across a mass herd of zebras around a watering hole and then zebras and wildebeests. The wildebeests go on forever, there are thousands of them and as we watch them cross our path, there are thousands line seems to go on forever, and this is just the gathering before the mass migration. It is starting to get late in the afternoon and it is time to head back. On the way back we see more lions resting around a watering hole and area, a hyena, giraffes, elephants, a jackal and hippos. We arrive back just after 5 pm, a long but rewarding day - again.

Have another game drive tomorrow at 7.30 am, another early start. 

I think we will need a holiday after this holiday!