There were no visitors to our tent last night and we slept well. Today we followed the same morning routine as yesterday and set out on our game drive at 6.30am.
I love these early morning game drives with the sun coming up and the cool fresh air and that feeling that no one else is around. Fairly early on we see a large group of banded mongoose and this time we manage to get some photos. We spend some time bird watching and particularly enjoy seeing a family of black faced sandgrouse. Then just before we stop for breakfast in one of the dry river beds we see a group of elephants with a really tiny baby, so sweet. Apparently if the baby can stand underneath the mum it is probably less than a year old.
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| Banded Mongoose - Not a great photo but they just don't stay still! |
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| African Harrier Hawk |
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| Tree Hyrax |
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| African Green Pigeon |
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| Black Faced Sandgrouse |
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| Sandgrouse Family |
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| Blue Cheeked Bee-Eater |
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| Mum and Baby |
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| I love this photo |
After breakfast we continue in the direction of Kimila Matonge Hill. The scenery is lovely and we stop several times for photos. Again we are entertained by a variety of birds as well dik-diks, kudu, agama lizards and rock hyrax. Later we come across a large number of giraffe all slowly making their way down to some water for a drink. We watch for quite a while as these tall elegant animals splay their legs and then lower their necks. It always looks like it must be quite an effort but they do seem to manage it quite gracefully.
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| Dik-dik |
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| Agama Lizard |
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| Ruaha National Park |
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| Lovely Scenery |
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| Giraffe coming to drink |
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| All heading for water |
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Drinking
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| A Saddle Billed Stork joins the giraffe |
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| Pied Kingfisher |
It is now nearly time for lunch. As we drive over a small bridge we disturb a hippo in the water below. He is not happy to see us and gets up out of the water and walks up the bank. We drive on a little further and stop for lunch at a new picnic place with flushing toilets.......quite a novelty.
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| A grumpy hippo |
Lunch is good again and after a little rest we are off again. This afternoon we see waterbuck, crowned cranes, warthogs and baboons before spotting the cheetah family again. The cheetahs are sat on the top of a mound and appear to be licking it, not sure why. After a while they leave the mound, cross the track and wander off into the bush.
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| I rather liked this chap |
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| Crowned Crane |
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| Warthog |
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| Broad Billed Roller |
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| D'Arnaud's Barbet |
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Cheetah Family - licking the ground
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| One of my favourite photos |
We were all very happy to have seen the cheetahs again and must have spent about 30 minutes with them before they disappeared into the bush. Later we see a "unicorn" giraffe - poor thing only had one horn, and some "book end" warthogs! We had to explain "book ends" to Ayoub and Dismas!
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| "Unicorn" |
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| Bookends |
When we see a group of zebra Dismas teaches us an easy way to identify male and female zebra (as it is not always obvious!!) by looking at their rear ends!! Apparently a male has a "thin" vertical black line below the tail and the female has a "fat"black line.
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| Left is Female and Right is Male |
After this we have one of those "How on earth did they see that" moments when Ayoub tells us there are some lions on the far side of the river bed in the distance. To begin with none of us see them so he drives closer and of course eventually we see 2 groups, both lying down. None of these were very active!!
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| So once we got closer we could see them |
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| A group of 4 |
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| Zoomed in on 2 of them |
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| Then these 2 were a bit further away |
After leaving the lions we are heading back in the direction of the camp when we hear a group of elephants in the bush. At first it was difficult to see them but in the end they did cross the track in front of us allowing us to get a good view.
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| The thick bush made it difficult to see these guys. |
We arrive back at camp some time after 6pm and Rebecca meets us with a cold juice - very welcome. Tonight there is just the 4 of us for dinner plus one other guest and Rebecca. As usual dinner is set out under the stars but half way through our meal it starts to rain - a few drops at first but it quickly becomes heavy. No problem though, the waiters just pick up the table and move it under the tent cover. We bring our chairs and within a minute we are sat down eating again. As usual, after dinner we head off to bed, of course escorted by the Massai.
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| Pre dinner drinks around the bonfire - Christine, Olaf, Rebecca and Pete. |
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