26th July - Safari Round 2!

First of all, happy birthday Emma! We had a party last night with balloons, bunting, music and games.

This morning after a 5 30 get up, we found out that Peter had driven 4 hours from Moshi last night with 2 birthday cakes so we all sang happy birthday and ate lots of cake!

Anyway, we actually made it to the national park today, so we have had a day on safari, and what a day it has been. For me this has definitely been the highlight so far.

We left camp shortly after 6 30 and it took us around 2 hours to get to Tarangire. The amount of wildlife there is extraordinary!

We saw; zebra, impala, waterbuck, wilderbeast, ostriches, baboons, monkeys, elephants (lots and extremely close up), and giraffe, amongst other things that I'm sure I'll remember about when I stop to look back!

However, that wasn't all! Within 20 minutes of arriving at the park we came across 4 lions sat on a termite mound..very exciting, lots of us were hoping and preying that we would see a lion today!!!

I think most of us would have been pretty satisfied with that had they been the only lions we saw, but they weren't! Mid morning we came across another 4 lions, a female and 3 young lions sitting on a different termite mound. Whilst we were watching them lots of wilderbeast walked past them and the female went for the kill, but she missed. Although a bit gruesome that would've been amazing to see!

After lunch we got even luckier and managed to see two male lions laying under a tree. 10 lions in a day!!!

Not to gloat, but the team who went on safari here on Monday saw no cats at all!

On that basis, I'm sure we would have gpne home fairly content with everything we had seen, but to top it off, we spotted a leopard! It was sleeping in a tree, so a great spot by whoever saw that first! The guides explained that leopard sightings here are incredibly rare, and to put it in perspective, Rhi, our team leader spent 5 months working in a game reserve in South Africa tracking leopards and she never saw one. The closest she got was finding a footprint. This was the first leopard she has seen!

That really is all of the animals we saw but an amazing day and we have been incredibly lucky with the wildlife we have seen.

We are on the way back to Moshi now and tonight we are back in the hotel, then tomorrow we will drive to Camp Tanga, our last camp! Everyone is really looking forward to the beach and scuba diving, I know we are going to have a good time!

Signal permitting I will update tomorrow once we are in camp and settled.

Mr L