Oct 06: The Seringeti

Today: a full days Game drive with picnic lunch.  Usually it's 2 game drives per day, early morning and early evening, but because the Park is so massive we need to drive long distances in search of game.  This is the drive we hoped to see the legendary wildebeest migration.  Well, we did.  But from a great distance away.  Our guide had to make a decision, race for tens of kilometres to catch a rare sighting of leopards, or go to see a few thousand cattle trudging across the landscape.  He chose the leopards ... Without consulting anyone.

There are five of us now (been joined by Rachel and Chris from Birmingham) and later learned that given the choice they would have gone for the leopards anyway.  

Still, we did see many thousands of wildebeest herding across the landscape, but they were so far away we could barely make out individual beasts even with good binoculars.  So we just had to imagine what they were like close up, like in the documentaries.  We later learned that one vehicle got stranded in the midst of the animals for quite a long time.

Meanwhile, while they were stuck we went on to discover cheetahs, leopards and about 30 lions, so it wasn't all bad.

Yes, today could be classed as a "lion day", plus the added bonus of a unique sighting of leopards climbing into a tree.

Several other vehicles saw the leopards too!

The joy of a so-called all day safari is that you get back late afternoon, giving us a few hours R & R to enjoy the Lodge and its grounds.

And to quietly view an African sunset from our verandah.