Our blog has been on the quiet side for the remainder of the European summer. Since Croatia it’s been mainly catching up with family and friends. (apart from Steve who lived it up in Brazil for the Olympics but as we’ve discovered he isn’t very good at updating the blog..)
The kids and I spent 3 glorious weeks in August with cousins travelling around Catalonia – but I felt that few people would want to read about 2 women and 5 kids. (Summary; lots of beach, kids arguments and lots of wine for the mums…)
Our European adventures finished on the 20th September when we left Heathrow for Dubai. A quick 3 night stop over (waterparks and nice dinners) before flying to Nairobi in Kenya and a connection to Kilamanjaro in Tanzania for the beginning of our Safari.
The Safari so far has been nothing short of sensational! We have seen the full 'Circle of Life' including a lioness giving birth, a day old elephant and several kills.
We haven’t come in rain season, but it rains almost every day and the nights are chilly and the days are hot. Wi Fi is non existent in most places (hurray!!) and we even caught a camp owner sitting in his car under a tree about an hour away from camp because it was a good phone signal!
While the full days (two game drives a day; one starting at 6.30am and the other finishing at past 7pm) leave me slightly confused as to what we saw when, the kids have been keeping journals and details of everything they have seen.
The map attached below details our total stops. I’m writing this from our 4th Stop (just under location D) which is in the Mara North Conservancy. We do not own a big camera and the photos are taken by Erin’s little $100 Nikon.
Kyran has written below about a single day. I think it was about day 4. We were staying at the fantastic Alex Walker camp (location C ) at the time. All the camps are great – even more glamorous than glamping with of course the addition of some wild animals. More from me in a few days but enjoy Kyran's narrative! Heidi xx
The Dunn’s African Adventure 27/9/2016 by Kyran Dunn
We woke up at about 6:00am, got out of bed, got dressed and got in our jeep with our guides, Michael and Jalolo, to start our day of with a game drive. We drove for 5 minutes before we stumbled upon a large family of hyenas. There were about seven in all, three of them little pups. We saw two of the pups suckling on their mother’s teats, while the other one kept on looking shyly at us. After that, we kept on driving for about another 15 minutes before we saw nine elephants right in front of us. While we were watching them, they slowly split into two groups to weave around us. In the group there were two pretty small baby elephants who, when passed us, turned to look at us. The next thing we spotted was a flock of ostriches, running around in circles just as we passed them. (Interesting fact: Ostriches have very small heads which means they have very small brains, and adding on to that, 80% of their head is made up of eye socket!). Not long after, we spotted four lions (two males, two females), relaxing under a tree. They were all quite young and it looked like the one in charge was a large male who was just starting to grow his mane. At about 7:30 we stopped for breakfast along the river, next to a hord of hippos and crocodiles. Breakfast was a buffet laid out on the back of the car. It included Coco Pops, bread, muffins, watermelon, some honey, plus hot drinks. After our lovely breakfast, we drove along the river to where at least 200 wildebeest were waiting on the bank to cross. We watched as one brave wildebeest slowly and carefully crossed the river. Then all of them started running across the river even though there were three crocodiles and about five hippos. Luckily, none of them died, and they all crossed safely to the other side. Just then we heard a voice over the radio saying that there were two cheetahs, not far from us, sitting under a tree. Just before we got there, we heard a “pshhhhh” sound. We looked down and saw that one of the tires had been punctured on a sharp stick. We all had to get out and wait for about half an hour to fit a new tire in. All that time, a big cape buffalo was staring at us angrily. Mum said we looked alike a family of meerkats keeping watch for predators. Finally the tire was fitted on, and we could drive down to the cheetahs. Once we arrived there, we found out that the cheetahs were two brothers and were relaxing in the shade of a tree. Erin was really excited, because cheetahs were her favorite animals. We were there for a good 45 minutes, before headed off to look for more wildlife. After a family of dik -diks, an eagle and some hyenas cooling down in some mud puddles, we took the route back to the lodge for lunch.
Lunch was great, and after a few hours of doing nothing, we left for an evening game drive. The game drive started out pretty casual with a family of giraffes, a family of buffalo, a group of 20 adult ostriches, a hippo on land, and a lot of wildebeest. The next thing we know we arrived where at least five cars were parked looking at something. They were looking at the two same cheetah brothers we saw under the tree! Only this time they were crossing the dirt path right in front of us. All the cars started to slowly follow them. But just then it started to thunder really loudly, and started to pour down buckets of rain. Two cars left to leave, but the other three stayed to watched. Then it started to give us a lightning show, making the sky light up in red and white in the dark. All three of the other cars left, leaving only the two cheetahs and us. The cheetahs then started a slight jog towards a herd of zebras. They started lunging at them but missed them all. Then, all of a sudden, they started running at over 70mph towards another herd of zebras, aiming for the foal. In under a minute, they had split the mother zebra from its baby, and were chasing the zebras away. Then one of the cheetahs lunged (I didn’t know why at the time), and skidded to a halt. I thought it had slipped and broken its leg, but by the time we got there, it had actually tripped up the zebra fowl and was now biting its throat, cutting of its breathing even though the zebra was still kicking. While one brother was doing that, the other one had already started on the hind legs, ripping them to shreds. After a good hour, the zebra’s skin was all torn off, and all its guts were leaking on to the grass. While it was exciting it was also depressing because the zebra’s mother was calling and waiting for her child to return. You could see her in the distance asking the other zebras for help even though she knew what had happened. It was really sad for us too all watch, so we left to go back to our tent. On the way back, we nearly ran over an ostrich that was sitting in a hole in the ground. If you looked closely you could see seven baby ostriches hiding underneath the mother. All of a sudden the mother ostrich jumped up and ran away, revealing another five baby ostriches and six eggs, one hatching right there in front of us. Thinking this day couldn’t get any better we stumbled upon 3 white-tailed mongooses scurrying back to their hole. After that excellent day, we slept, dreaming about what tomorrow would bring, and boy, what it brought in deed.
