Tanzania: Serengeti National Park

The previous night was not the best night’s sleep ever. Once the storm abated the animals moved in, and throughout the night I could hear the wildebeest moving and making strange grunting noises, seemingly right outside our tent. Oh, how I wished a lion would come along and scare them off. The icing on the cake was a zebra braying like a donkey from about 4 o’clock in the morning. We did have a sunrise game drive, so it was not quite so bad to be up early.

The plan for the day was hang around the area we were in of the Northern Serengeti, before moving on further south so we could explore the Southern Serengeti the following day. We left the Kati Kati tented camp and headed back down the Mara River. What we really wanted to see was a crossing of the river by a large herd, most likely wildebeest. This requires patience and bit of cat and mouse. The wildebeest gather on the banks of the Mara River, especially in the morning and early afternoon, and if the numbers get large enough, they may all decide to cross, or they may not, and the herd will simply disperse. This is where the patience comes in.

We got word of a herd of wildebeest gathering on the bank of the Mara, so we headed out. By the time we arrived, there must have been about 25 vehicles parked about 200-metres from the river. There was a group of up to 1000 wildebeest just chilling by the river. So, the waiting began. For nearly an hour we sat there not knowing if anything was going to happen, then it all kicked as the first wildebeest came down the steep banks into the river. Suddenly, all the parked vehicles were off towards the riverbank at high speed – it was exhilarating and scary at the same time. By the time we arrived by the river the cars were all parked in a tight line – it was not clear where the wildebeest would get through. Suddenly, the wildebeest appeared at the top of the riverbank and looked very confused to see all of us and couldn’t work a way through. Quickly, we and several other cars had to move to let the wildebeest through. It took us a minute or two to reposition to the rest of the crossing. As we were watching a crocodile started moving towards the line of wildebeest crossing – we were fascinated as well being concerned for the animals. It missed on its first pass but came back and caused more commotion the second time and still it failed to get its teeth stuck into anything. 15-minutes, after it started everything, was over and calm returned and the wildebeest who had crossed were grazing as if nothing had happened.

It was getting towards lunchtime so moved towards a grove of trees. This part of the Serengeti has quite a lot of vegetation, so finding shelter was quite easy. First things first we had to inspect the tyre on the back of the Landcruiser (a euphemism for taking a pee) before moving along to have our lunch.

After lunch we carried on through the park, making our way back to the gate to the Serengeti Park, which we’d come through the day before. Along the route, we came across a group of game drive vehicles that were parked up. When we got there we discovered they were watching a cheetah who was hiding from the heat of the sun underneath a tree. After a few minutes the cheetah got up and left and so did we.

From here we headed south and back into the park, where we’d be starting our game drive the next day. We were staying at a different Kati Kati Tented camp, which looked identical, but this time there were no noisy wildebeest and zebra to keep us awake.