Lions and more lions, also Giraffe, Elephant, Buffalo, Warthog, Gazelle, Warthog and many Birds

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The boys did well to get up early so we could hit the road for a 4 hour drive to the Masai Mara National park gate, our goal for the day being Lions.

The drive was relatively easy and again the boys did well, the only issue being a new squeaky wheel that wouldn’t seem to go away but we soldiered on. At the gate the joy of African bureaucracy kicked in explaining that because we wanted to camp on the other side of the park we had to have a transit pass to get to the middle of the pass where we could then buy a ticket and pay for camping. Not entirely clear why, but no sense in arguing.

No sooner had we entered before we saw Elephant, giraffe and warthog as well as an ever growing array of gazelles of all shapes and sized. Then up ahead we saw a small collection of vehicles circling a few bushes and we were delighted to find 4 lions hiding from the heat in the bushes. We were only about 2-3 m from them and the boys loved it.

We came to a washed out road with a tour group in a small 4x4 stuck in the middle of it wedged in mud and water. They looked a little stuck and in distress so we did our duty and towed them out and they were proper stuck. Their guide and all in the vehicle were very grateful and took photos of us and promised us riches beyond measure and then left us to clear the mess of towing them out. That said if they hadn’t been stuck there we might have been so we turned back and went another way.

We kept going and found many more animals and eventually stopped for lunch by a river full of Hippos and apparently crocs but we couldn’t see them unfortunately. On we went and saw no less than 50 more giraffe and 100 elephant as well as Ostrich and Kate’s favourite the secretary birds (which kills snakes by karate chopping them with their feet).

The roads were not great and it had been surprisingly wet and we found many blocked and kept having to change our route until again we saw a few cars congregated and were blessed to see 2 lions lying by the road, one a rather impressive male.

At this point the boys were knackered so we headed to our camp for the night on the edge of the park facing the Mara, absolutely spectacular.

We hope for more tomorrow, but all in all we had a spectacular day.

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