Day Four - Lions and Lions and Wildebeest oh my!

It’s a challenge keeping up with blog-post writing while enjoying a full schedule of game drives, camp visits and social time with other guests and staff so I’m going to skip to the game-viewing experiences in Grumeti Reserve and come back and add in a post dedicated to Singita properties later.

An early start, with a refreshing 5:30am outdoor morning shower in the dark accompanied by the sound of the rushing river below my room. 

We drove out from the lodge around 6:15am to a cloudy soft-lit morning and into golden-green grasslands; such a gorgeous, serene landscape. 

Yesterday other guests had seen a large lion pride so our focus was to try to track them down. Along the way we saw topi, warthog, mongoose. Godson spotted an elephant herd a little away and we drove off-road* to get up closer. The matriarch was looking wary with her trunk up and flapping ears with a not-too-happy stance so we decided not to get too close. It was a lovely small herd with babies - lots of trunks wiggling up sniffing us out and a few of those lovely low elephant rumbles- a really nice sighting. It was the first actual herd of elephant for this trip and so was special. 

Not far from the elephant we drove to a hyena den; home to some very cute pups and some rather fluffy and clean adults all lazy in the grass while the pups were more inquisitive.

We continued on for site visits at Singita Serengeti House and Sasakwa Lodge (which I will make a separate blog post about). On leaving Sasakwa we heard that the lion pride that we had been looking for had been sighted earlier so we headed in that direction, drove off the road and into the tall grass. We searched around for a little while and found no signs of them but then drove up a small grassy hump and there down below was the sighting of a lifetime

 

A mass of lions were at the base of the small hill feasting on a newly killed wildebeest. We drove to around 15 feet away and then just sat and took it all in. 

The sound was unbelievable the noises the snarling and growling and chomping just so visceral. To be so close and witness such a basic and primal-feeling scene was totally mind-blowing and something that I had not experienced in such close proximity before.

The adult lions looked up with challenging blood-soaked faces as we drew to a stop but then turned  back to business , ripping, tearing and snarling totally ignoring our presence from then on. The pride was all females and cubs with just one male juvenile maybe a year old already showing the scraggy back of the neck. 

One lioness seemed quite concerned and would get up and call apparently letting other pride members know that there was food but within 45 minutes everything was gone. 

We drove back to the lodge in time for a delicious lunch after whichI toured the property with Sinter as my guide and then took a little break back in my room that overlooks the river - a little downtime after a busy few days

 

At 4pm Godson and I headed back out - this time towards the east where the migrating herds had been seen earlier today. we drove for around 30 to 45 minutes crossing the Grumeti River which was in full flow and through the local village of Robanda and then about 15 minutes later we came across wildebeest and more wildebeest and more wildebeest…..  the further we went the larger the herd became. Godson estimated around maybe 50,000 but so hard to tell

It is rutting season so the males especially were extra loud with that bizarre honking like grumpy old men; such a comical noise and they are constantly chasing around engaging in constant confrontations trying to ward of male suitors for their harem of ladies.

It’s hard to imagine the scale of the full migration when you consider that this mass of animals may be only 1/40 of the full population. 

This seemed to be the forward party moving now westward from north-east Seronera and would  be filling Grumeti and the Western Corridor possibly within a few days.

We finished the day with a most welcome gin and tonic in the middle of the migration with the wildebeest serenading us with their very unique song

Then back to the lodge in time to change for dinner, some very nice company around the fire pit and then a Swahili tasting dinner which was absolutely delicious

Another amazing fantastic day with such special sightings. I feel so very lucky going to sleep now with the sound of the river flowing by my room.

Good Night Day 4 x

* since Grumeti Reserves are outside the National Park driving off-road is permitted.