The quick and the less adventurous

[Mosquito]

Done with lunch yet ,heh ,heh? I know I am being selfish but so much too look forward to!

[twaffle]

Getting there.

[Tusker]

I think you might be surprised, if given time and the right price. If there were a couple of weeks listed, with a good price - say $3000 for the week... I would suspect there would be interest.

 

 

Matt, I think safari GTGs are possible but difficult to coordinate as everyone is working on a different time schedule. It would need a 3 year lead in time I think.

[graceland]

 

I think you might be surprised, if given time and the right price. If there were a couple of weeks listed, with a good price - say $3000 for the week... I would suspect there would be interest.

 

 

Matt, I think safari GTGs are possible but difficult to coordinate as everyone is working on a different time schedule. It would need a 3 year lead in time I think.

I'm in.......just sayin, Been there, love it; any excuse to return

[twaffle]

After lunch the four of us headed off in a good mood, the morning's hunt disappointment behind us. It was, for me, one of my favourite afternoon's drive. The camaraderie was building up nicely, James and Mark were starting to understand where I was coming from and I was understanding their method of guiding. When you start working as a team, the world is a very good place.

 

We started off with more giraffe, which since the general area around Serian Main camp is full of giraffes, was a common occurrence.

 

 

Then moved on to spend some time with a nice, friendly herd of eland.

 

 

 

Birds were harder to see this year and a dedicated birder who was in camp later during our stay (I mean a serious, serious birder!!) explained that with the tall grass and so much feed around the birds were dispersed and the smaller ones just invisible. The ones we did see seemed to have really strong colours, so quantity may have been lower, but quality was up.

 

A yellow throated Longclaw.

 

 

After driving some distance over towards somewhere else, we happily came across a good sized breeding herd of elephants and that is where we stayed. Elephants are wonderful and I love just sitting with them. No one else was about so we had them to ourselves and they were busy eating, interacting with each other, babies playing and 2 young males practising their fight manoeuvres.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can imagine, I took a lot of photos and we spent pretty much the whole time with them. Some came up and checked the vehicle out, some just wandered past vaguely looking in our direction. Eventually, however, we had to leave them to allow enough time to return to camp and as they headed off into the forest, we continued in the opposite direction.

 

We took the road which led us past the location of the lion pride from the morning, not with any real intention but you never know what you might find. At that earlier sighting (the iPad sighting) we had witnessed one of the distressing things tourists do to embarrass their guides in front of other camp's guides. A European man ( I would say Spanish, but it could have been Portuguese) was yelling from his vehicle to someone in one of the others. His guide kept gesticulating at him to be quiet, the poor guide was really trying, but the man was standing and yelling through the open roof and wasn't going to be told by anyone. Of course, we discussed his bad behaviour in our vehicle and looked down our noses at these 'tourists who don't know how to behave around animals". Hmmmmm .... shouldn't have done that, just quietly.

 

At this time of the evening we weren't looking with purpose, just looking as we returned to camp and were fortunate to find the lion and lioness from the morning, the ones who had headed off towards the bushes. Not much lovin' going on, but a nice sighting. There was one other vehicle which turned up and we both sat looking at the male. James whispered to me, "Look in that vehicle, do you recognise the guide?", and looking over I saw Daniel waving at me. Daniel was my wonderful guide from Serian for my previous 2 visits so without thinking I yelled out in the loudest voice you can imagine "HELLO DANIEL" and waved frantically. It took me all of about 12 seconds to realise what a dreadful hypocrite I was, and another minute to apologise to Daniel's carload and to James and Mark. Always better to admit to our own stupidity I think! I was to see Daniel a couple more times and was able to contain my enthusiasm.

 

 

And so night falls on the second day.......

 

 

 

 

[Pennyanne]

Love the giraffe peering over the tree. Great photos.

[SafariChick]

Continuing to love this trip report and wonderful photos! I know you're already past this in your report, but I happened to just now come across this article about a recent occurrence near Nairobi National Park, shows how close NNR really is to major civilization!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276911/Meanwhile-Kenya-Lounging-lions-bring-rush-hour-traffic-standstill-lie-middle-Nairobi-road.html

[Tusker]

Its great to see Serian come through once again. I'll be there for my third visit in a few months.

 

In my opinion one of the absolute best deals out there with the private vehicle included.

[graceland]

A DANIEL SIGHTING

 

(I would have yelled" Hello" myself!) whoops, can't help it when you are so excited to find a favorite guide!

 

I hope you found out his location......?

 

[twaffle]

He works at Exploreans, but their guides are in khaki and I almost didn't recognise him. He was going to try and visit me but it became very hard to arrange a time and I don't know whether he called in or not. His smile is just the same!

[twaffle]

Day 3 … and I can only blame myself for spending the best part of the morning sitting in the bushes in gloomy light waiting for action! I didn't really think it through and certainly didn't ask the right questions so when the opportunity came to visit a hyaena den with mixed aged cubs I thought it would be lovely to have them in golden morning light with some action between adults and cubs. I should have asked where the den was located, as it was, the den was in a nice spot but the behind some large bushes. The opening to the dens were behind the bushes so in shadow with the morning sun. Lesson learned, photographically it wasn't so good, but for the hour or so that we sat there, it was fascinating. No regrets.

 

The not so young cubs were quite curious.

 

 

 

We thought we would be in luck as these youngsters started to move into the light on the other side of the bushes as adults headed off to hunt, and just as we started to get some pretty photos a car load of tourists came through the bushes, everyone talking loudly and all the cubs raced back to safety. In disgust, and because we had waited so long, we cut our losses and headed off.

 

A black bellied bustard.

 

 

Impala enjoying the morning light.

 

 

A rosy-breasted Longclaw.

 

 

And then James saw a large herd of zebras heading off in single file and he mentioned that they would be going to drink at the local dam so we headed off there as well.

 

 

 

An Egyptian goose.

 

 

We then came across this fine male cheetah sitting on his termite mound.

 

 

 

Remembering our missed hunt yesterday, we had our fingers crossed. Without any warning, he leapt down from his vantage point and took off.

 

 

From our position we saw him race across the plains, through the long grass when he suddenly stopped. It looked like he had success as he disappeared but we couldn't see the prey animal as the grass was too long. When we caught up with him, he had just started to feed but we never did manage to see what he caught as it would have meant that we would have to have gone to close. We surmised that it might have been a hidden fawn or something similar.

 

 

 

 

We left him to his meal and headed off.

 

A bateleur eagle in flight.

 

 

We happily found our cheetah mum and cub from yesterday.

 

 

 

 

And as they were settling down to rest in the shade we took the hint and found our own shade for our breakfast.

 

 

 

 

[Double Dare]

Your photos are just lovely.

[twaffle]

Thank you.

[PCNW]

Omgosh. So glad I haven't been around for a few days so I could catch the whole trip so far in one sitting. Thank you for these beautiful images and excellent report.

[Atravelynn]

The elephants were in really nice light. Love the cheetah photos. Your table shots are lovely too.

[Mosquito]

Its great to see Serian come through once again. I'll be there for my third visit in a few months.

 

In my opinion one of the absolute best deals out there with the private vehicle included.

I agree...I did three camps with them in August and they were super!

[Mosquito]

Ah Yes! wonderful shots as always. Hyena den in Mara North? just thinking about the sun and bushes you described....

 

Amazing to see all the greenery...totally different experience than the dry season.....

 

Looking forward to Day 4....

[twaffle]

Twaffle

 

I was at Emakoko for the day last Sunday at the end of our Mara safari and it was a great way to wind up. Emma and Anton are wonderful hosts and the two meals we had there, especially dinner under the stars with what seemed like a hundred lanterns and sounds of the bush, were amongst the best of the entire safari. I loved the photographs of old Nairobi on the walls along with Anton and his fathers explanations. Although jaded after 8 nights in the Mara, the short game drive we took specifically to see Rhino was a lot better than I expected but we only got to see the Black Rhinos from about 300m so my images of the Rhinos are a lot smaller than yours. I thought its just amazing for residents of Nairobi to have a real wild park right next door to the city. I understand the southern border is in fenced allowing animals to wander freely there. Can't think of another major city in the world with such a comparable park next door ( no Arusha does not count as a major city !).

I was wondering how Emakoko got permission to build in the park till we were informed only their parking lot is in the park and once you cross the bridge it's technically outside the park. The whole thing was apparently Anton's idea.

Do you have any memories of the park from your childhood days and how different is it today? Was this Kenya's first National Park?

 

Lovely pictures as always

I have been meaning to respond to this, keep forgetting amongst all the trip reports going on. I agree on the wonderful old photos and I thought the same as you, really good hosts and lovely setting. We may have got a bit closer to the rhino cow and calf, but that was mainly because luckily she kept walking towards us. I have so many memories of the park, it was wonderful and we often went just for an afternoon. I don't really remember how different, apart from the lack of houses around it. My school was near where the gate to Sheldrick's is, and there were no suburbs around at that time. Not sure on whether it was Kenya's first NP, but could look it up.

[twaffle]

I didn't realise how late breakfast was until I went to look at the photos I took after breakfast and didn't find much of interest at all. Odd, isn't it. Breakfast and lunch all squished together because so much wonderful stuff is going on despite the less than auspicious start.

 

This is a view inside my tidy tent. The next morning we were heading down to Nkorombo camp in the Reserve so I was sorting what I needed to take.

 

 

 

 

First off a few birds, a francolin (I think, the mind's gone a little blank)

 

 

A greater blue eared starling

 

 

A grey backed fiscal with catch of the day

 

 

 

 

Then we came across 2 lionesses who looked like they wanted to hunt. Worryingly, they started to stalk the Maasai's cattle which was coming into the bomas and we had our fingers crossed that this was one hunt which wouldn't happen.

 

 

We stayed with them for a while but then they decided that it wasn't really what they wanted and they settled down. We headed off and found the rest of their pride but they were all lazing around and a storm was rolling in so we left them as well as storms and skies was what I'd been begging for.

 

 

A lone man on a motor bike raced across the plains.

 

 

We forgot about lion prides and cheetahs hunting, we bypassed the possibilities of elephants and had no time for herds of beautiful zebras and antelope. We found a nice spot on the high plateau and enjoyed the storms, our sundowners and we told jokes and laughed and there wasn't really anything else that mattered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I turned around to talk to Mark and James and saw that their faces were lit with the burnished remnants of the setting sun and it was like we were all united by the beauty laid out in front of us.

 

 

 

And I can assure you that I didn't tamper with the colours at all.

 

 

And as the sun set on the third day, I reflected on how fortunate I was to be here, surrounded by such enduring magnificence.

 

 

 

 

 

[Game Warden]

Ahem - Let's see your African sunrises / sunsets... hint hint.

[PT123]

Hello Twaffle, just getting caught up on the trip reports. as usual, your photos are breathtaking! I'm enjoying this very much. Glad to hear that you've recovered from the mystery illness and that you had such great sightings. Looking forward to more.

[JohnR]

Wonderful!

[twaffle]

Thanks for continuing reading, I'm sorry that it is getting long winded again but I can't seem to help myself. At least it gives an impression of each game drive's experiences.

 

Matt, I'll try at the end of this to include them.

[Game Warden]

I love long winded...

[graceland]

If this is what you are writing and posting as images, then I dont want this TR to ever end!

DITTO!!