Tarangire National Park

Tales of baby tigers and penguins.

We are on safari again, but this is no repeat journey, this is the real deal. Tanzania has more wildlife than you can shake a stick at, and I feel that we have seen most of it. in just one week.

This blog is somewhat delayed due to the complete lack of hi-tech communication suffered over the ten days abroad. I say ‘suffered’, but, in fact, it was bliss. No intruding phone calls, meals taken without everyone texting friends and playing angry birds. Peace in our time.

Tanzania; a first time visit for Annick and I, along with Caroline and Denis for whom it was a first ever safari. They are two lucky bustards! Ahem.

The safari trucks we used all week were the very latest Toyotas. Comfortable, spacious, designed for wildlife spotters and photographers in mind, with 240V charging points next to each seat.

From the airport pick-up at Kilimanjaro, we spent a couple of hours passing through the local towns, with instructions to keep our cameras out of sight to avoid the local down-and-outs. On reaching the Tarangire National Park, we were surrounded by all manner of timorous beasties. The density of wildlife here has to be seen to be believed.

Our guide in Tarangire was the endlessly ebullient Raymond. He was forever filling us with information (some good, some… not so good). When he started a sentence with 'latest research shows…’ we quickly learned that bull was soon to follow. Always the jocker.

He asked us what we wanted to see, and he would then attempt to comply. My quest, for instance, was to see leopard. On the very first evening he found one for us. Unfortunately, this was to prove all those months of eye surgery (to make my new bionic eyes) wasted.

“Ah, there’s a leopard!” He said.

“Where?” We cried.

“In that tree” he said.

“What tree?” I replied…

Even when we parked next to the aforementioned tree, we had real difficulty seeing the leopard, so effective was its camouflage. I took pictures and, on returning home, I enlarged, refined and photoshopped the images until, finally, I could see the bloody thing…

We were later to get much better, stunning sightings of leopards in the Serengeti, but for now, he had kept his promise.

You want Zebra? We got zebra (bums and all)

You want trees? Raymond could track 'em down…

Some of which contained a surprise…

You want romance? We got romance…

You want dental care? We got teeth…

We challenged him to find many different species. He succeeded with most, failing only at baby tigers and penguins (duh).

The sunsets kinda made up for it.

And so, after three incredible days in the Tarangire National Park, the great white hunters left for one of the most amazing places on this entire planet.

The Serengeti.


Here’s a link to all the best photos from the Tarangire National Park (link to a Fickr album)

Keep your eyes open for the next blog, 'The Serengeti - Tales of Wallabies and Coconuts’.