Aberdares National Park

The Kenya Wildlfe Service warden was very informative and extremely helpful, after paying we set off into The Salient, there is only one public camp site, numerous private sites, fishing lodges and 2 world renowned hotels, Treetops and The Ark.

Green Park, Naivasha

Early rise, a full breakfast, we headed in Naivasha to refuel and make our way to Masai Mara.

The road from Naivasha runs along the bottom of the Rift Valley, Mount Longonot stands proud, wonderful views, however, the tarmac road is terrible in bits, mainly due to the heavy traffic, this road is used by all the transit lories going to Uganda and consequently takes a lot of battering and ends up in a very bad state.

We turn off at Mai Mahihu, the main road to Narok and the Mara. This too is not in a very good condition, however, they are in the process of repairing it.

Its actually a very nice trip, despite being a long journey, the Great Rift and Mt Suswa to your left, Mt Longonot and Mau Hills to your right, the road in a flat basin between, lots of plains game mingling with the Masai herds, Thompson's and Grant's gazelles, zebras and the occasional giraffe.

We eventually arrive in Narok 4 hours after leaving Naivasha. Our final refuelling station, the main road a dream till we get to the Masai Mara turn off. It's actually amazing, in the middle of no where you have this highway, winding its way through the vast wheat fields, but I'm not complaining.

We follow the signs for Mara Safari Club, 85 km down the road to turn off and come to a barrier, this road is all weather and is maintained by the farmers and they charge about £2 per trip for all using it, money well spent as far as I am concerned.

Once you get into the Game Ranch and follow the Trans Mara Highway, you realise the benefit of the pay as you go, as the road from there on is appalling, mind you it is all black cotton soil which becomes a quagmire when it rains and extremely difficult to maintain. 

The upper plains in the game ranch were teaming with game. Lots of wildebeest, a good sign that the migration into Mara is good. We amble our way towards the western side, we prefer to camp in the Musiara area, near the marshes, you enter through the Musiara main gate.

The first problem is the fact that there are no sign posts, you can see the gate, but to find the right track leading to the gate is nigh impossible, regardless of how many times you visit the area. There has been a lot of rain so the roads are slippery, but not impassable.  

You have two options when camping in this area, Crocodile Camp near Il Moran (part of Governors Lodges Group) or the one near the main gate. We chose the latter, for security and the camping area itself sits up on a small knoll, over looking the marsh and plains to the north of it. We are followed by huge black storm clouds and are extremely lucky that we managed to get the tent up before the storm.

Typical Masai Mara weather, the storms are short but heavy, before long we have unpacked and ready to go out on a small game drive, we also need firewood. 

We head off into the marsh, the roads are a little slippery, but, the Land Cruiser makes light work of it. We have never seen so many wildebeest, there are reputed to be over 3 million this year and we can well believe it.

The plains are covered, a photo would not capture the vast herds, and only a 360° snap would do it justice. Parked in their midst, the noise is over powering, they are like ants everywhere you look its black with wildebeest.

The marsh is surprisingly dry, we wind our way across to the woods, fill the car with firewood and return to camp for dinner. After the storm the sky is clear and star studded, we sit and eat our dinner round the camp fire, a chorus of hyena calls in the distance. It’s an early night in readiness for an early morning game drive. We slowly succumb to the weariness of a long day and bumpy ride, lion roars towards the top plains are the last thing we hear before we sleep. 

Alarm goes off at 5.30am, the morning pitch black and crisp, we get the water boiled, flasks of coffee made, our insulated coffee mugs filled and we set off. We make our way towards Governor's airstrip, on the horizon the sky, the first sign of dawn, to turn to hues of pink, orange and yellow, animals silhouetted against it.

We spot something near the pools next to the airstrip, 2 lionesses flat out, we stop, switch off, refill our coffee mugs and absorb the vista, how lucky we are to have all this on our doorstep. Hippos’ heads poking through the lilies and lions lazing after their night exertions, the birds singing their dawn chorus, just beautiful. Slowly the Mara awakens, the tourist vehicles start to leave the lodges, the animals almost sigh with relief having survived the night.

We head off into the plains and make our way towards the Masai Manyatta and the gorges beyond, hoping to find a leopard. We slip and slide our way up the valley, not 50 metres from the road, three young male lions, panting after having just killed a wildebeest, hyena and jackals already milling around, waiting for an opportunity to nip in and grab a scrap.

We continue up to the gorge, leopard spotting as per instructions (by the leopard experts), drive slowly, less than 5 mph, check ground, half way up and tops of trees, we slowly enter the gorge, nothing but rock hyrax, no luck today. 

Our days are all mainly the same, up early, back to camp for late brunch, an afternoon rest and out by 3.30pm for evening game drive. Although we were on a mission to see our first big crossing. As neither of us had been lucky enough to have seen this phenomenon.

However, Musiara is on the east side and most of the crossings are towards the west around Talek and Masai Serena. On those days we head off with gas cooker and the makings of a full breakfast.    

At one point I decided to get down for the conventional camera, but, Suzy out of the corner of her mouth, warned me in no uncertain terms to stay where I was. I must admit you do get complacent, this is a wild animal, regardless of how at ease she is.

The problem now is the fact that Amber takes to sitting on cars and won’t move for over an hour. We first met Amber last year, she had 3 cubs at the time, all of which have now gone off, but, I have heard they too are using cars to their own advantage. 

Big Cat Diary and the BBC were all over the Mara, which can be a bit of a problem, mainly as you are almost guaranteed to see cats if you spot one of their vehicles. However, we personally do not wish to live off their scraps and prefer to find our own. Mind you we had met up with one of their team, whom we knew personally, they were in search of Amber and couldn’t find her, we were joined by Jonathan Scott, whom Suzy knew, after a chat we set off on our own mission.

Up Leopard Gorge again, via a different route, we were confronted by a huge bull elephant with 4ft tusks, he arrogantly ambled up the road towards us. We didn’t argue with him and drove off road to get round him. As we neared the gorge, I spotted lions, a mother and 2 small cubs, she was a little wary and soon disappeared into the tall grass.

If the lion was around then no leopard would be. We then drove back down to the plains, only to meet Jonathan Scott and his crew again, he had had no luck finding Amber, we on the other hand were more than happy to point them in the direction of the “cats” we had spotted. At least we had managed one up on BCD this time.

The plains were covered in wildebeest and strewn with half eaten carcasses.

Every morning we came across hyena and vultures, we gave up counting the Hyena, one day it was 30+ and all seemed to be part of the same “clan”, all ages, from small cubs to large females, they are characters.

Scenes which could never be duplicated. The back drop, an African dawn, with small herds of elephants, tiny little babies struggling to keep up, herds of wildebeest parting in waves as the elephants cut their way through, no one arguing with these large beasts.

To the fore a carcass with hyena feeding, surrounded by different types of vulture.

We spotted more vultures milling around and went to investigate, another cheetah and a tiny cub, mum having just killed a gazelle, most likely a Thompson's. She wais quickly trying to stuff as much as possible in her mouth, worried about being in the open and other predators being attracted by the vultures.

Mind you having 40 vultures around her also made her paranoid because of her cub. The cub was restless, too hot and not very happy having to wait. It kept wandering off, eventually mum had had her fill and wandered off to the safety of a shady tree. 

Our search for a big crossing was fruitless, we sat 3 hours on 2 different occasions, the first about 500 wildebeest and a few zebras went from crossing to crossing, edging nearer and nearer to the river bank each time, who knows what happens in their heads, en mass they decide they’ll move to a better spot, others like us sitting in a prime spot only to be disappointed, even the crocodiles dive into the water and commence their patrol only for their dinner not to arrive.

Eventually, 10 wildebeest wind their way from the other side, without hesitation cross, walk straight through our 500 and take off up to the plains, ours  turn tail and follow. The next time, we sat and sat, afternoon turned to dusk and slowly the light faded away, 1000 wildebeest, standing, going, not going, going, not going, in the end we had to leave as time had run out. You are either lucky or you aren’t, it just wasn’t to be.  

Another day, we happened across 3 lions, 2 large males and a female. The largest male and female then started mating, the other male relaxing and lying in the sun, paying no attention. Neither of us had seen this before and were entertained by the antics. The female completely brazen and flaunting herself.

After a while we move our car nearer to the other male, the lioness then decided to seek out the second male, suddenly the larger male rushes towards us and attacks the male next to us, a show of domination, a shame really as he was not even interested and now gets a thick ear because of it.

When the rush began, I was busy trying to get the electronic zoom to retract, but wasn’t quick enough, Suzy thinking we were about to be attacked, forgot to capture the fight. The roars were deafening, but all over in a blink of the eye. That left us with hearts beating wildly and both of us wide eyed and completely breathless. And all happening not 4ft from the car. 

One afternoon we had returned from our morning drive, we had our brunch, the only thought we had was to relax in the sun, but, not 50 metres from our camp a lioness made her way towards the Musiara marsh, her whole body language was hunting mode.

We watched with our binoculars and then decided we had to follow. We locked up the tent, got all our drinks and snacks together and headed off to find her. By the time we reached the spot we last saw her, she had disappeared. We slowly traversed, back and forward and eventually found her, panting in the long grass, as we drew close, we realised her mouth was tinged with blood. In the time it had taken us to reach her, she had taken a topi, we had missed it all. 

It is one of nature's phenomenon, one night we went to bed with the sound of wildebeest all around us, in the morning, we wake to complete silence. It was as if someone had blown a whistle for end of a match, When we opened our tent, there were no wildebeests in sight. We drove up to the plains, nothing, it was eerie, when we made our way towards the crossings, we came across line upon line all trudging towards Talek, all as one with the thought of returning to the Serengetti.   

The Mara at this time of year can be very wet, you can almost set your watch by the storms, 4pm every day, black clouds start scurrying across the plains and follow the escarpment, sudden down pours which last around an hour and leaves the air crisp and fresh.

One morning we decided to visit the 2 Patricks, (Patrick Beresford who runs Governors and Patrick Reynolds who runs Il Moran), we went to refuel and have a coffee. After filling up we made our way to the bar, one thing led to another, we had a drink and another, catching up with all their news.

We were then invited to lunch, a few more drinks and lost all track of time. The heavens opened, thunder, lightning, driving rain and howling wind. The bar tent had to be zipped up, it was freezing, we sat it out. Every 5 minutes reports of tents blown down, branches on tents and fly sheets flapping. We had another drink, we eventually left around 7pm, a little tipsy, meandering our way back to camp, the car fish tailing in mud and water.

We were met by a friend, Chris Brennan, who had gone to our camp to make sure we were ok after the storm. He had sat for 2 hours worrying we had got stuck out on the plains. Us being a little worse for wear didn’t really go down well. Our camp was flooded our tent flattened, poles bent and fly sheet flapping. After getting the tent up, the inside was soaking, mattress, duvet, blankets and clothes. All we had that was dry was the clothes we stood in, a large picnic blanket and 2 cushions we use for the top of the car. 

By now the wind and rain had stopped, we hung all the wet things on bushes and trees, built a fire, dried out the tent as best we could, had a quick dinner and retired to a bed of 2 cushions and a picnic blanket. Lucky we were tipsy, we slept, albeit cold and uncomfortable, we awoke to a beautiful sunny morning.

We decided to try and dry as much as we could but, the camping bug had waned, but only till our next adventure. We asked Patrick Beresford for a bed for our last night, had a lovely hot shower and a warm soft bed, what better way to end a safari.