3 February 2013 - Plantation Lodge to Olduvai Camp

Up at 6.30, breakfast at 7, on the road at 8.

We were driving to the Ngorongoro crater which is within the Serengeti National Park. It took about 1hr to get to the gate of the park along a very bumpy road. It felt like every bone in your body was shaking. Got through the paperwork at the entrance and headed to the crater.

Entrance to the Ngorongoro crater

It's a very popular place for safari drives so there were lots of jeeps although our driver said this was a relatively quiet day! We drove around the rim of the crater, it was dense with trees and bushes on both sides of the dirt road. We stopped at the highest point, about 2,500m above sea level and got a view of the expanse of the crater below.

View of the crater from above

We drove down the track into the crater which is a huge grass covered plain. We saw huge herds of buffalo, zebra, wildebeest and gazelle. Smaller groups of elephant, warthog, various bird groups.

Black kite

Buffalo

Crown cranes

Buffalo

Buffalo

Common zebra

Another driver had radioed that there was a pride of lions resting quite close to the track so we headed there along with 10 other jeeps. Plenty of room for everyone to see. One of the lions decided to take shade under one of the jeeps.

 Lazing in the sun

 Looking for shade

Interesting resting place

 Wall of the crater from the grassland

 Abdim's stork

Eland

Hippo covered in mud to stop sunburn

 Variety of birds

Sacred ibis

 Blacksmith lapwing

 Elephant

Ostrich

 Ostrich

We moved on to other parts of the crater and saw thousands of pink flamingos on the lake. Unfortunately we couldn't get that close but it was an amazing sight.

 

Pink Flamingos

Coke's Hartebeest

 Coke's Hartebeest

Crowned Plover

 Hyena

Wildebeest

There was one black rhinoceros lazing in the sun quite a distance away.

 Rhinoceros in the background

 Baby zebra

Thomson's gazelle

Jackal

Wildebeest

A family of ostriches were grazing close by and a number of hippos in a waterhole.

Ostrich

We drove to a picnic area where everyone has to go to have their picnic lunch and use the bathroom facilities. All up there was about 50 vehicles. We saw a couple from dinner the night before at Plantation Lodge. Lots of birds around the picnic area looking for crumbs.

 Picnic area

Black kite 

 Great white pelican

 Fan tailed widow bird

 Northern masked weaver

Northern masked weaver

We went back to the crater for another drive around spotting elephant, gazelle, wildebeest, buffalo, warthog, zebra, lions sunning themselves and hyena.

Kori bustard 

Warthogs 

Taking it easy 

 No shame...

Warthog

We then drove out of the crater towards our accommodation for the night, Olduvai Camp.

 Last view of the crater

 Elephant always eating

Maasai village

It took about 2 hours to get to the camp. It's in a remote place but near to a Maasai camp. This is quite a large tented camp with 18 tents, bar, mess hall. We weren't sure what to expect as this camp is run by locals only, so we were warned by the travel agent not to expect the same service we'd received in previous camps.

Our tent at Olduvai camp

The tent was fine, it was a bit of a hike to the bar and mess hall but OK. Terry went for a walk with the Maasai and other guests to view the sunset.

 Maasai guide

Sunset from the lookout

I relaxed in the tent got a few things up to date. When he came back we went for a drink and then realised we had to pay for our drinks which we hadn't had to do previously. Anyway we managed but the service was as poor as we'd been warned, which doesn't really make sense because they've been operating this camp for some years. Food was OK, we sat with a couple of Americans we'd meet in Manyara camp, Julie and Seth who were on their honeymoon. Finished dinner and went to bed around 9.30.