Ndutu Conservation Area - celebrating the big and little things

We slept pretty well that night and awoke to a beautiful sunrise. It was the day of our anniversary and we were excited to discover this new part of Tanzania and all that it had to offer. 

The sun was quickly up and breakfast consumed, which meant it was time for our anniversary wildlife drive. Jacob, our guide, was excited to get us out to see the park. We'd done a small bit of "off-roading", but today, we'd be able to go where the wind took us.

Our first encounter was the elephant from the day before, or so I assume. He was grazing happily in the long grass near the camp. The animals, especially the larger ones and predators, couldn't care less that you're in their space.  We got to hang out with him for about a half hour, maybe more.

Chipped tusk, he's been around

We also came across a Secretary bird...the most vexing creatures. It was impossible to get a good picture, but here's what we have. She (or he) was building a nest.

We then ran into the pride of lions we'd seen the night before. I didn't put any video into the last post, so here's a reminder of the tribe.

The lions were a bit sleepy, but the cubs were still playful. We actually got to watch them for quite awhile, taking in the beautiful way the lions interacted with each other.

You can't see me!

Then we headed off into the vast stretches of the plains.  The herds of wildebeest were expansive and awe inspiring. I've described it as a living river; hundreds or thousands of the animals passing either leisurely or panicked fashion is truly a sight to see. 

We learned that, often, the wildebeest are often escorted by zebras. Jacob explained that wildebeest have a great sense of smell and hearing, but zebras have excellent eye sight, so they team up beautifully. We realised that we were in the middle of no where, surrounded by grazers with no one else around. Jacob said we were allowed to get out of the jeep, so we lowered down slowly trying not to scare the nearby zebras. Jacob was kind enough to take some photos of our big day. In a moment of vanity, I took my glasses off - I need them for seeing the screen on camera. I put the glasses in my shirt pocket.

Three baby hyenas hiding in the brush.

Close up of one of the baby hyenas

As the wind picked up and I was worried that my shirt flapping was bothering the herds, so I took it off and threw it in the jeep. Ron took a few more photos of me - they're super squinty, but what can you do in the hot African sun? Here's some rare photos of us!

Shirt on!

Shirt off!

We spent around a couple of hours out amongst the herds, marvelling at the beauty of the landscape and being surrounded by zebras, wildebeest and antelope. We loaded back up to headed towards a more wooded area where Jacob promised a surprise. 

After about 10 minutes of driving at a fairly good clip, I realised I didn't have my glasses. They'd fallen out of my pocket somewhere in the savanna. My fairly new, expensive, progressive lens glasses. In true Jacob fashion, he insisted on trying to find them. A completely impossible task. As you can see from the photos, there were no markers, no indicators of where we had stopped. We could remember some bleached out bones and a fresh pile of zebra dung. Not exactly promising. We weaved back and forth over the ground we thought we'd covered, with no luck. Ron pointed out a herd of antelope that we'd passed after we left, so we knew we had to go further, but still remained dubious of our success. We'd spent well over half an hour, maybe forty minutes and I was ready to call it. Then both Ron and Jacob spotted bones. Strangely, bones were quite infrequent, which gave us a bit of hope in our search. Long story, slightly less long, we found the fricking glasses! Freshly baptised (lightly) by a fresh pile of zebra manure. We all jumped around and high fived. Jacob said, unpretentiously, that "sometimes the impossible is possible." Indeed. We returned on our adventure, buoyed by amazement and giddy joy.

Accidental photo of bone

He stopped and we saw a stunning Martial eagle, prey in claw. It's a stunning animal. It's the largest bird of prey in the world, weighing up to six and a half kilos with a wing span of up to 2.6 metres. (According to Wikipedia.)

His prey is another bird

"Do I have something in my beak?"

And then the big surprise. We drove up to a tree positively surrounded by jeeps - the most we'd seen and as we jockeyed for position, I looked up into the branches and saw the most beautiful leopard. (Okay, it's the only leopard I've seen in real life, but I stand by my statement.) Of all the animals we saw that day, she was the most indifferent to the presence of mere humans. We discovered her kill in a nearby tree. Our guide said that leopards are the most selfish of all hunters, they hide their kills in the trees so that other predators can't get to it. The tree she chose did have pretty tight branch placement, making it difficult for large birds and other cats that can climb to get in.  

The kill - a gazelle, we think

As we started back to the camp, the sun slowly started to lower and as we parked the jeep, the colours blossomed across the horizon. It was the most stunning sunset we'd seen on our whole trip. When we turned around to walk towards our tent, we saw the full moon, rising under the branches of the surrounding Acacia trees. It was stunning and we weren't really sure which way to look.

Bush TV (the fire)

 

We finished off an amazing day with dinner in the tent. The camp (and our tour company) surprised us with a song, dance, bottle of sparkling wine and cake. It was so very touching and beautiful. It was definitely a day to remember. 

Coming up: more from Ndutu, real life on the plains.