Category: Africa

Rare Sighting As always in the Mara and early start, after our excitement yesterday with Keeka the Leopard how could our game drives get any better. Our first sighting was a family of elephants, we parked up along the road side and watched them go about there business. The air was cold and the sky… Continue reading Day 6 – Rare Sighting

Keeka! The last time we were at Keekorok was during the annual Wildebeest migration and it was great to be back but boy what a difference. The grass was tall and spotting animals was not going to be easy, driving in to camp, the surrounding areas were full of vegetation, not an animal to be… Continue reading Day 5 – Keeka!

Encounter of the third kind. Whilst moving around in the Mara and as long as we don’t have rain, I like to stand up in the van and keep look out as we are moving along. The van has a roof which we can raise in order to stand up and get good viewing. Whilst… Continue reading Day 5 – Encounter of the third kind

Four goodbye’s As we left Fig Tree camp for the last time and head to Keekorok, laying under an over hanging tree was our four lionesses. Making our way along the track we decided to stop and check out the mix of Thompson Gazelle, Topi and Grants Gazelle. These Antelope were at ease with the… Continue reading Day 5 – Four goodbye’s

Speed Queen Stepping out of our tent to a raging Talek River was no surprise. The rain had fallen hard all night and the staff from camp told us the rain had been falling all day north of the Mara in the  Mau Forest. The colour of the sky was grey but you could see… Continue reading Day 5 – Speed Queen

After a quick cup of tea it was 4pm, time to head out on to the plains. All morning and right up till 3pm the sun was out but as we drew closer to our next game drive the weather changed. Once again the Mara ecosystem was showing us how quickly it could turn. As… Continue reading Day 4 – Escape

After a good nights sleep and well recovered from our adventure to Bila Shaka, we awoke to the horrid sound of my alarm. It had just turned 05:30am and it was time to get up and prepare for our next adventure in the bush. The sky was clear after the rains in the night and… Continue reading Day 4 – Looking for breakfast!

After several hours of negotiating the sodden plains of the Maasai Mara and with a mud covered van, we arrived at an area known as Bila Shaka. The name Bila Shaka in Swahili means “without fail”. The locals and guides called it this due to the main lion prides continuously being spotted in the area… Continue reading Day 3 – Bila Shaka

After breakfast we headed out into the reserve. Today we were heading to the North Western side of the Mara reserve. We were off to find the stars of the BBC Big Cat Diaries and hopefully a lot more along the way. After we crossed the Talek River we started our trek west. It was… Continue reading Day 3 – Double River Crossing

After a scorching day we could feel a storm developing. It was in the air. You could just sense a change in the weather was coming. As we headed south towards Keekorok, to our right (West Mara) we could see heavy rain in the area of Mara Serena. Moving in the opposing direction was a… Continue reading Day 2 – Fire in the sky

Mid-day in the Mara can be extremely hot, and this was true of today. The sun was pumping its rays down onto the land and the horizon was dancing. Our tent was situated right on the south bank of the Talek River, and the opposite side of the river was home to more than 20… Continue reading Day 2 – A hard days work

Heading out from camp in the early hours, the morning sun was working hard to penetrate the dense cloud cover. With a nip in the air we decided to scout the Talek River for Leopards. It was not long before we found our first animal, not the leopard we were hunting, but a lone Hyena.… Continue reading Day 2 – The Hunt

After a long trek from Nairobi in to the Masai Mara game reserve we headed straight out into the bush. It was great to be back. The last time we were in the Mara was for the Great Migration, now, 18 months on what a difference! During the migration the Wildebeest trim the grass right… Continue reading Day 1 – Evening of the Lion

No more than 5 paces away from our van at the top of Lookout Hill “Quick, Stuart into the van, we must go now!” Godfrey shouted. The race was on. Over the airwaves the wardens had called in that the wildebeest gathered beside the Mara River had started to cross. As we sped down from… Continue reading The Great Migration

The alarm rang out and it was time to get up, get dressed and make our way up to the tea and coffee station for a hit of caffeine before our 6AM drive out in to the Mara. At 05.30am it was still dark and there was a nip in the air, the rain was… Continue reading Friends round for breakfast

Designed to kill, they stalk with stealth and attack in a group. The only big cat in the world to have a social network. The lion is an amazing animal, and in the wild their true power can be seen in full glory. The day before we had seen a pride of lions in the… Continue reading Pride of Africa

Driving through the bush looking for leopards we heard a rumbling. Slowly it got louder and louder until out of the gap between the bushes came the Wildebeest! Before we knew it, we were caught up in a mighty stampede of them passing through, amazingly they all kept to single file as they passed by.… Continue reading How many are there!

After three hours searching for a lioness and her cub, we decided to head back to camp. Our guide Godfrey was disappointed that this was the first outing in ten days that we did not see what we had planned to. Suddenly, running across our path, being chased by its mate was a spotted hyena.… Continue reading North Mara Conservancy

Cheetah, the fastest land mammal. With a top speed of seventy miles per hour, there’s not much that can escape this swift agile cat over a short sprint. Normally the cheetah hunts alone, but when a female has cubs nearing maturity, then hunting as a pack can prove successful but sometimes testing. As the rains… Continue reading Mara Triangle

The most accomplished climber of all the big cats in Africa, agility combined with the strength to carry twice its own body weight enables the leopard to kill and store its prey in the trees for several days before the need to feed. Although it has been known for lions to climb trees, they do… Continue reading Lake Nakuru