Serengeti NP Day 6: A last gift on the long road back

Young male lion in morning light

This was our final morning in the Serengeti, and knowing how long the drive back would be, we were up again early with a plan to have a morning game drive before heading out to Naabi Hill gate.

Serengeti NP Day 5: Chasing after cheetahs

Cheetah cubs in a row

While we’d had nice sighting of lions and fantastic sightings of leopard, our cheetah sightings had been limited to a few long range sightings, and we’d hardly taken a photo of one.  So it was back to chasing cheetahs again.  Along with the information about the cheetah family at Mawe Meupe, we also had a lead on a family between Maasai and Boma Kopjes, so the plan was to head out to that area.

Serengeti NP Day 4: A day of spots

Up again at the crack of dawn, we were ready to go at 6am even though it was still dark.  But it was an hour’s drive to the leopard, so we left in the dark hoping to be one of the first at the leopard.  In the end, we were the second car to be on the scene, the other being a guided tour vehicle with one guy with a massive lens – he no doubt had the same idea as us.

Serengeti NP Day 3: A day of wrong decisions

Just chilling...

Before we had come to the Serengeti, we’d contacted the Serengeti Cheetah Project team to see if they would give us any information on the location of a cheetah mom and 5 cubs that they’d been tracking.  They’d been very helpful and had given us 2 different areas to keep an eye out for cheetah cubs, which we were hoping to catch on this trip.  So the plan was to focus on cheetahs for the day. 

Serengeti NP Day 2: all about the lions

Lions devour a fresh wildebeest carcass

We were up at 5.45 am the next morning, and left the campsite at around 6.30 to go look for cats. We didn’t have to wait too long before getting our first sighting of the day – a cheetah, but again a bit too far away to shoot.

Serengeti NP Day 1: life’s a journey, enjoy the ride? Not when you’re doing the ride from NCA to Serengeti…

Side-striped jackal

There has been some confusion about the procedure of paying for the NCA, including an increase in fees.  We’d luckily been able to sort out our TANAPA cards for the Serengeti in Dar es Salaam, but the Ngorongoro Conservation Area has managed to make things a bit more complicated.  

Serengeti NP: Finally back again after a 2 year absence

Kili and us back in the Serengeti after 2 years

It had been almost 2 years since we’d last been to the Serengeti.  Problems with our car had forced us to change our plans in December 2015, ending up in Tarangire instead.  This time we were determined to get to the Serengeti, although we were pretty worried about Kili (the car) as we’d suffered a broken timing belt and never-ending problems with the fuel pump over the last year and a half.  

But now all was fixed, and we were just hoping that Kili would survive the road from hell (a 100km stretch from the NCA gate to Serengeti gate) in one piece.