Our one and only cheetah and the Ngorogoro Crater
Trip Start
Apr 26, 2010
1
128
169
Trip End
Dec 02, 2010
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Friday, October 8, 2010
We were up and reading to at 7am for our last game drive. We just hightailed it through the Serengeti, straight into the Ngorogoro Crater. We had a pleasant surprise though on the way. A really close sighting of a cheetah. Got a magic picy. He was just strolling along, very stealthy – quite cool.
The crater was quite good. It had quite a concentrated group of animals. There were some really big herds and lots of animals hanging around the waterholes. We saw flamingos in the salt water lake, not close up, but good enough though and wildebeest for the very first time. They are weird wee creatures – goat like manes and funny cow like bodies. We found them in quite a green area, not far from a watering hole – among the zebras and a few buffalo. There was a really big daddy buffalo down there too. The wildebeest were not perturbed at all by all the safari jeeps either, obviously quite used to us.
We found a few hippos in this watering hole too. I got a few yawns, but they stayed in the water the whole time – no pics on the shore. Maybe at another game drive, who knows. Hmm.. what else. Tehre was a lion following his lioness, and gazelles of course and lot of all the above mentioned, but the rhinos were elusive. We should have been able to see black and white rhinos, but there was not a trace, which is a shame. And no leopards either. So we have only seen three of the big five. But plenty of time yet, oh well.
The terrain was not quite like I expected. It was still extremely dry and I kinda expected it to be a bit green still. Being a crater, but it was only green in patches. Quite nice to see the small bit of greenness though, changed the pictures.
We had lunch near a big watering hole but we had to sit inside to eat our lunch as there were birds of pretty that would try steak our food and rip our fingers basically. But it was a nice stop. Then it was a quick ecit. It didn't even look like we were going to look for a rhino. L and we were up the massively steep hill and back out of the park.
We were taken back to Kudu camp from the other night, then driven in Christie to Snake Park again. Dinner tonight was nice. We sat at the camp restaurant – yay tables and chairs and had some spit roasted sheep and salads. Just salads for me, but everyone seem to like it.
I can't believe how dirty we were though. Just three days and my hair felt disgusting from the dust and heat. Yuck. The girls had cold water so I jumped in with Ash, much to the amusement of the boys. But all clean now, hair washed and even straightened at the bar.
The campsite/bar is like a hub for overlanders. It has about 5 or 6 multiboards for us to charge things and there were souvenirs from all the people who come through and leave t-shirts and messages. Sean Fitzpatrick left a 2007 World Cup AB’s jersey and theres a photo of Simon Maling and others all over the world. Quite cool.
