www.richardhyland.com ..::.. richard’s diary

Up at 6am again for the last day of safari and our last two safari trips before heading back to the Severin Sea Lodge in Mombasa

Early morning safari

We came across a cheetah hidden in a small area of long grass. Eventually he sat up and I got the last of my favourite photos.

Then we found some more elephants and one had a baby that was she was still weining. Beth got an amazing photo of the mother and baby.

Post-breakfast safari

Whilst some of our group went to the Masai villiage again we went searching for some of the smaller animals and saw jackals, hyenas, more zebras, baboons and vultures. Then back to the hippos again.

On the way back to the air strip we came across a baby zebra

Overall I absolutely loved the Masai Mara, I’ve definately got the safari bug. I would love to return to the Masai Mara, and maybe next time stay near the Mara river and possibly for the wildebeast migration season. The other place is the Sergegetti that we’d like to visit.

More photos from Safari can be viewed in my photo gallery at http://www.richardhyland.me.uk/collections/categories.php?cat_id=23

Up at 6am, out on safari at 6.30am after a quick cup of tea and a bit of sponge cake to get us started!

Early morning safari

Being 5000ft above sea level and the sun not yet up struck me that it was bloody freezing! The afternoon before at been 30 in the shade and now we were having to wear jumpers to keep warm.

Amazing colours though as the sun started to rise on the horizon

As soon as we were out we saw hyenas and warthogs, then just a few minutes drive and there they were, a small pride of lions sleeping in the rising sun. Judging on how skinny they were, I don’t think they had eaten in a while either!

Then just a few hundred yards away were the cubs for this pride, also basking in the sun being baby sat but a single lioness.

It became clear that it was going to be the day for lions, not far away was another pride (or maybe the same pride split up). This pride had very baby cubs about 3 months old. The adult lions sat up took one look at us, sighed and went back to sleep, the babies came towards the jeep making sounds of, what can only be described as meowing!

Then came one of my favourite photos, the pride all decided to move on and after we had left them actually came towards us and then straight past us. This shot is of them walking off into the distance with the cubs skipping behind, occasionally turning to look at us.

Peter knew the male of the pride wouldn’t be too far away. Far enough to be out of the group but close enough he could keep an eye on them and protect them. And along with it another one of my favourite photos.

Peter then tried to find us a rhino, but unfortunately due to the fact they had in the past almost been hunted to extinction there are only 21 left in the Masai Mara and so it proved to be a task we couldn’t complete.

Post-breakfast safari

Out again and this time we’d take a trip to a traditional Masai village

Then off to the the hippos (the only area close by that had deep enough water for hippos to submerge themselves).

Along the way some more zebras too!

Afternoon safari

We came across an adult male elephant, they call a tusker. Peter kept the engine of the jeep running as this tusker was flapping his ears, a sign that he wasn’t happy with us being there and might charge at us.

We also found a group of cheetah brothers on a small grassy hill

Over the radio we heard something in swahili and Peter rushed off to join other groups. They had found a mother and baby leopard asleep in a tree!

More photos from Safari can be viewed in my photo gallery at http://www.richardhyland.me.uk/collections/categories.php?cat_id=23

From the air strip to the camp we saw elephants and zebras in that short journey. The trips were one in the afternoon from 4pm to about 6 or 7pm ready for dinner. In the morning we were woken up at 6am in the pitch black to go out at 6.30 am for another safari, back in time for breakfast and then another safari after breakfast at 10.30am back for lunch.

I took over 800 photos and I’ve only photoshopped 80 or so at the moment so what I’m posting here is only a small selection of the photos we actually took out there!

From the air strip to the camp

While waiting for the first afternoon safari

We had monkeys outside our tent!

Afternoon Safari

The one thing that struck me was when we stopped the absolute peace, quiet and calmness of the plains of the Masai Mara. It’s so rare in the modern day to have absolute quiet.

Often we’d get so close the the animals that if you were to put your arm out the side of the jeep you could have touched them! They didn’t seem phased by the jeeps or people at all, but they did all seem to be keeping a close eye on other animals though. We even found a cheetah with a kill! Not sounds for the squeemish

Towards the end of the afternoon, on our way back to camp, we first went through a big ditch and almost got the jeep stuck but Peter managed to keep going through it, past some bushes at which point he decided to drive through these bushes, stopped and just to our right was a male lion fast asleep under a bush. There is no way Peter could have seen him from the track though!

As all the jeeps were connected by radio all of the other groups started heading to see this lion but seemed to have got stuck at this ditch from earlier. So we went to help out to see this jeep with one wheel high in the air, everyone outside it trying to get this jeep free again. I’m not so sure everyone would have been so keen to get out had they realised, as we did, that less than 100metres away was a male lion asleep under a bush!

Just enough time for a last giraffe before getting back to camp for the night

More photos from Safari can be viewed in my photo gallery at http://www.richardhyland.me.uk/collections/categories.php?cat_id=23

I spent most of Sunday wandering around London Zoo taking photos. It was good fun and good practice for the Masai Mara. I’ll try to post some of the photos soon, unfortunately they won’t be available for purchase or download as I don’t have a property release from the zoo so they are simply for my own collection

Here are the first photos taken with my new camera, some from the back garden and one of the cat

Had a lovely day out at Colchester Zoo today, just decided to go on a Whim and then found an outlet place near Braintree to get cheap stuff which is always a bonus.

I forgot to take my camera with me so the best shots I could get were with my phone, still not very good.

Check out the photo gallery for many more

Well welcome Jinx the cat to the household