We haven't heard any bell noises, but we have seen some animals! My dad arrived on Monday morning by small plane after 4 plane flights, much to our and the kids excitement! We picked him up from the airstrip and headed on our first game drive. The hugest benefit to the truck is being able to head off early from the campsite on a game drive, find a decent hippo pool or migration herd, and stop for breakfast!
We've had meals next to hippos (2 or 3 times), watching a leopard in a tree, in the midst of a zebra & wildebeest herd, and a few other slightly less active stops - it has been great, and both Kaylin & Xan have worked out how binoculars work.
On Wednesday morning we took some non-main road drives, and suspect that we went where no cars have been for a while - we were seriously bushwacking with the 8 tonne truck. Fortunately we did get stuck once in some mud, which was quite exciting without a winch and without a hope of being discovered by the normal safari guides! There are also absolutely no private cars in the reserve, so the guides will always take the better known & better condition roads for their clients - so we probably would have had some remote camping experience if we couldn't get out the mud before sunset! But luckily we managed to get out.
Remote camping is one thing, but organised camping is pretty wild here as well! The sign at the entrance to our little clearing in the bush spells out quite clearly the risks, and on Wednesday morning we left, and not 1 minute at 30kms/hour after we left we joined two other game drive vehicles watching some lions! Nice. We still have a truck and 2 kids and a father, so we're doing OK.
We have lost some truck functionality ... our fuel pump (pumping between the spare and the main tank) has burnt out twice; our geyser was bounced & bumped around so much that the pipes became disconnected, and we nearly had a bath in the back of the truck; and our spare fuel tank supports have sheared off and we'll have to drain that and carry it to Nairobi on the roofracks! Did I ever mention that a truck is a rough ride, and the roads here in the Serengeti are extremely bad? Extremely bad as in you're bouncing along at 20km/hour and then all of a sudden everything goes ballistic and you work out you were going waaaaay to fast!! Other times you bounce along the road and then you just have to stop and laugh and take a break! It is hectic!
Today I let down the tyres a lot ... happy to figure out that 5.5bar is too hard, but I'll kick myself if it makes a world of a difference - we should have then done it 7000 kms ago! Hopefully we can get the leaf springs modified in Nairobi before our next holiday back south.
The animals and timing in the Serengeti was amazing! On our drive up to our campsite in Serengeti we saw quite a few animals in the South of the park, and on our game drives we went back to hunting for the wild life (not being disappointed mind you); on our drive back south the migration herd was right next to the main road! We drove for at least 2 hours with uncountable numbers of wildebeest, zebra and buck on either side of the road. It really was indescribable, and even the photos and the video only show a hint of the frugality of nature (NOT!), the lavishness of nature.
This morning we woke up early to go on a game drive into Ngorongoro crater, and again it is beautiful. Wildebeest, zebra, rhino, hippo, lions, hyena, warthogs, buffalo, ostrich ... all in an area that's 18km across! Very cool. We organised with a local guy to come and fetch us from the campsite in his safari vehicle (all Land Cruisers, modified with pop-up tops). The decend and ascend of the crater was rather steep with a lot of sharp bends, so it was quite a relief that we were forced to hire a guide to show us around while Max rested in the campsite. It was a nice change for us all, and the kids especially loved being able to look out the roof.
Our campsite here on the rim of the crater is very nice - very organised compared to our Serengeti clearing, and a bit more space for the kids to run around and ride without us worrying about wild animals (there was an elephant yesterday evening within 100m of our truck!). We've had a great time in the park, and tomorrow we're heading to Arusha to pick up our Carnet de Passage (car's passport) for Kenya. DHL is amazing... an official document (our carnet) from Cape Town to Arusha in Tanzania for 24 hours delivery for R 350? That's nearly unbelieveable! Must also mention that the AA also was brilliant at organising our carnet all remote within a few days.
So tomorrow back to Arusha, and then we have 2 full days to get to Nairobi, find Jungle Junction (a place for MAX to sleep / hibernate with a nice waterproof tarpaulin to keep him dry), organise some luggage to bring back our useful stuff, and then flying home on Tuesday.
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