Change of plan today as one of the chef's mothers had died and he has, quite obviously,been given compassionate leave - so no fly camp today as you need a chef.
So instead of fly camp we opted for a day trip ( a combined river and land safari) with a late start taking a picnic lunch with us instead of an early start taking breakfast.
This itinerary allowed me to have a jog up the beach and walk back before breakfast. Due to the full house breakfast for the staff was a hectic affair.....we sat patiently and eventually I had two banana pancakes - yum!
At 11am we left camp with Tizo and Michael, one of the Masai guides who was having a trip out - he took as many photos as I did but on his mobile phone.
First stop was the Wami river - where we were having the river safari - it was hot but thankfully the boat was covered and the river provided a cooling breeze.
Close to the river we passed through a community which earnt its living through extracting salt from salt pans - this is where today's picture of the solitary baobab was taken. It must be a hard toil for these folks - but as we drove through their simple village happy youngsters ran towards us waving and smiling.
On the river banks and mud flats which were exposed as we went down and covered by the incoming tide as we returned we saw woolly necked stork, spoonbill, open billed stork, white stork, caspian and gull billed terns, baboons drinking, a small crocodile slithering into the water, a fish eagle, an osprey and a mangrove kingfisher.
By 1345 I was very peckish so was grateful when we moored the boat with an anchor near a pod of hippos and had 'lunch with hippos'!
We returned seeing many of the same species including this time a very large crocodile asleep on the bank.
Back in the jeep we started our land safari - I spotted a red bird on the back of a warthog - it was a carmine beeater (resident sept to april) - we also saw one on a goat - very cleverly these birds wait for the animals to disturb insects that they can then catch and eat!
As we continued we saw many of the species already mentioned in other blogs; however in addition - we actually saw elephant this time, not just prints, bushbuck, long-tailed shrike, Von der Deckens Hornbill, lions who were in the same spot and still mating and on the way out of the park we saw the smallest antelope, the Suni (in fact we saw several, but none stayed long enough to be photographed).
We had a great safari and got back a little tired and hungry at 1900hours and were ready for our shower and dinner.