Majete WR, Malawi - A remarkable recovery

Elephants at the Shire River

If you’re unfamiliar with AfricanParks, it’s an NGO set up in 2000 to rehabilitate and manage national parks that had been neglected and poached out of animals.  After 3 years of negotiation, Majete became the guinea pig - the first reserve in AfricanParks’ portfolio. 

Liwonde NP, Malawi: A hidden gem

Cheetahs in Liwonde

This is a story about a national park that punches above its weight. So far it is a conservation success story and hopefully it will continue to be so. The park is Liwonde National Park, located in the East of Malawi, about 2 hours drive from Blantyre and about 3.5 hours from the capital Lilongwe.

Akagera NP - Cats on the road

Running giraffes

We have spent quite a lot of time in Akagera in 2019 - about 8 times in the first 3 months of the year.  And it has paid off with some nice sightings of lion, a couple of glimpses of leopard, and one really good long weekend where we caught the Big 5.  

Uganda - The pearl of Africa

Crossing the Equator, just up the road from QE national park

The only real point of reference we had for the Pearl of Africa was the Semliki Forest. Much like the Serengeti, Maasai Mara or the Okavango delta are hotspots to the wildlife enthusiast, the Semliki is for birders due to the sheer number of endemics this small dot on the map seems to have. If you have ever paged through any volume of the ‘Birds of East Africa’, the Semliki will most certainly catch your attention. There are other draw cards for Uganda including the primates and of course the shoebill and all this lay within a day’s drive Kigali!

Mikumi NP: January 2017

Us and our road block

Ten days after spending New Year ’s Eve at Mikumi and opening our 2017 shooting with Super Sub on the road, we were back at Mikumi. It was the first long weekend of the year and last one before the April holiday season so we were back looking for shooting opportunities. The rains were late and except for the odd spot of green, the landscape was still waiting for the rains in January. Metres from the gate there was a fresh buffalo carcass by the side of the road and the hope was the lions were in the vicinity.

Ruaha National Park - December 2016

Ruaha National Park

One year after we broke the timing belt en route to Ruaha which led to a string of expensive repairs and after fixing a new clutch and four new heavy duty shocks after our last Serengeti trip earlier this year, we were finally heading to Ruaha National Park in the Southwest of Tanzania.

Mikumi NP, December 2016

Hippo Pools was the only water for miles.

With no long weekends in November, two public holidays early in December was an opportunity to check out Mikumi for the last time of the year. The usual early morning start and we were on the road this time with 4 new heavy duty shocks a new clutch plate. The check in at the gate was surprisingly quick for a long weekend. The lion report was the Hippo pools pride was last seen near the water holes two days ago.

Mikumi NP, October 2016

Dry season at Jacana pool.

A long weekend a couple of weeks after returning from the Serengeti saw us packed up and on the road early morning to Mikumi. We were still driving on standard shocks which was a concern but given we had driven from Moshi to Dar on them, it shouldn’t be an issue. 

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.

January 2016 - Back to Mikumi NP

Lazy lions at Mikumi

After the car behaved from our last week’s trip and with a long weekend on offer, it was Mikumi again with a night at Udzungwa mountains planned. We were on the road early Saturday morning but there was swelling on my jaw which we decided to monitor and keep going. 

January 2016 - Mikumi National Park

Mikumi elephants are awfully chilled around cars

After a string of car trouble over Christmas we were back on the road but uncertain how the car was going to fare. It was probably the quietest drive with both of us on the edge listening intently to the car. The car itself, despite the odd sound after the engine had to be opened as a result of the broken timing belt, appeared to be cruising as normal. Passing the very spot we broke down the couple of weeks before was kind of strange but also relief that we had made some ground.

Lake Manyara NP & Amani Nature Reserve

The Maasia steps decent on to Lake Manyara

Our Christmas trip to the Serengeti had been put on hold thanks to car trouble on the way north from Dar es Salaam to Arusha.  So instead, after a delay in Moshi to get the car sorted, we'd changed plans and headed to Tarangire national park.

But now, the tsetse flies of Tarangire national park finally got the better of us and we decided to check out Lake Manyara national park which is about an hour away. 

Tarangire National Park - December 2015

Home of the elephants, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

2015 was a disaster for us in terms of bush time as a result of work in Kenya for 6 months and then car trouble! Car trouble has finally caught up with us and I guess in hindsight, if there was ever a good time to cop it, may as well be the year that has already been a bad one in terms of bush time.

The Mara Crossing

Northern Serengeti, Tanzania, August 2014.


Herds gather on the far side of the Mara River in Northern Serengeti

The annual Wildebeest migration in the Serengeti is one of nature’s greatest spectacles and it’s most intense moment is surely the Mara River crossing. While we have witnessed the migration on the plains in the Southern calving grounds 3 years in a row, the Mara Crossing remained the first prize.