Duration
9 Days
ITINERARY
DAY 1: Arrive Kilimanjaro International Airport
Upon arrival at Kilimanjaro international airport, you will be met and transferred around 30 minutes to the lodge for the first night, a comfortable lodge situated beautifully on a golf, polo and wildlife estate. Meet up with the rest of the group, followed by sundowner and dinner. If there is a polo game on, sundowner will be at the polo club house
DAY 2: Fly to Ndutu area
An early start to catch a morning charter flight to Ndutu airstrip in the southern Serengeti. After the flight, depending on where you fly in, anything between 2-4 hours’ drive, depending on routing (you may be flown over the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara or Tarangire National Park, a wonderful opportunity to see these iconic sites from the air), you will be met by a safari vehicle at Ndutu.
A short wait whilst you are checked-in at the Ngorongoro Conservation area registration post, then set off driving, past impressive rocky outcrops known as “kopjes, river courses and across the Serengeti’s famous ‘short grass plains’. Prime grazing area for migrating wildebeest during the early months of the year, with luck (always dependent on the weather!) the plains may be thick with wildebeest which arrive in their thousands after the rains to make the most of the fresh grass.
The plains are also the wildebeests’ favored birthing spot-it is one of nature’s miracles that females delay giving birth until the rains and grass arrive in an effort to ensure their newly born young get the best start in life, a chance to build their strength on lush new grass before setting off on the long march north to Kenya’s Mara plains.About2-4hours in all, you eventually arrive at the spot chosen for the first camp in the shade of a lovely flat-topped acacia.
Meet the team of support staff; settle into your tents and a welcome lunch in the shade of the mess tent. Then, a short siesta, before meeting the horses and their grooms, and time allowing, an evening ride to try them. Return to camp at sun set for hot showers, drinks by the campfire and your first dinner together in the bush, before tomorrow when the adventure really starts!
DAY 3: Long morning ride in Ndutu area
Woken at about 7am with tea or coffee brought to your tent, then breakfast in the mess tent before heading to the horses to mount up at around 8am. Depending on the weather and movement of game, you might ride out for a long morning today returning to camp for lunch and another rider a game drive in the late afternoon-or you might head out for a full day ride, meeting the back-up team for lunch out in the bush.
Either way you should have a good chance of seeing the gathering herds of wildebeest for which the area is famous, as well as giraffe browsing in the acacia scrub, zebra and perhaps predators such as hyena and jackal. Dinner and night in camp
DAY 4: Ride to the bush Camp
Today might be the first moving day. An early wake up at dawn gives you time to pack up before breakfast, then mount up to set off to a new camp, riding through areas that have rarely been visited on a horse, perhaps passing Maasai herdsmen or their small settlements, where tribesmen live off
DAY 5-7: Five Days to ride across the plains of Ndutu area and southern Serengeti
Five more days to explore, riding across the open plains, into grassy valleys dotted with picturesque granite outcrops, swathes of whistling thorn and typically East African flat toped acacia trees. The route and arrangements each day will vary with the weather and movement of game but your guide will aim to ride to at least one or two more camps so you can discover new areas.
On one of the afternoons or mornings the horses will be given a rest and you jump into the vehicles to visit Olduvai Museum, one of the most important anthropological sites in the world. The museum includes fossils and artifacts of our human ancestors and skeletons of many extinct animals who shared their world. Throughout the safari you will most definitely cross this gorge ‘Cradle of human kind” on one or more occasions on horseback.
Following day another early start with tea or coffee served at your tent, ride out for3-4 hours of riding, meet the back-up crew for an al-fresco lunch in the bush and time to rest in the heat of the day, before heading off again, aiming to reach the new camp by tea time.
Set up ahead by the back-up, tonight’s camp might be spectacularly situated in the middle of the vast open plains, where, at peak migration time, the air will be filled with the braying and mesmerizing grunts of wildebeest. A cup of tea or a cold beer when you arrive in camp, followed by hot showers & dinner, listening to the sounds of the bush
DAY 8: Drive to the Fly camp
At one point during the safari (weather allowing) you will spend the night in a lightweight fly camp, sleeping under mosquito nets. This morning you jump into the vehicles (there will be a game drive with a picnic lunch on route, crossing the short grass plains and looking out for cats such as cheetah, lion and leopard which thrive here, as well as elephant and the flamingo which gather on the area’s soda lakes.
Later in the afternoon you will reach the fly camp in time for sundowners followed by dinner under the stars.
DAY 9: Fly back to Arusha / Departure
An early wake-up call to say farewell to the horses and crew. The drive this morning will be up the Ngorongoro highlands and breakfast will be on route overlooking the world famous Ngorongoro Crater. After checking out at the gate you head to the African galleria, a great place to buy anything from arts, tanzanite or just a small Tanzanian gift. Shortly after you head to the Manyara Airstrip followed by a 40 minutes flight back to the estate where lunch will be served. There will be showers available to share however if you like your own dayroom please let us knows and we will book this in advanced.
