Our last morning in the Mara - we asked for a 5.45 wake up so we could finish our packing and be ready for a 6.30am start to our final game drive enroute to the airstrip. We had to be there for 11am - half an hour before our 1130 flight to Magurie on the Kenyan/ Tanzanian border.
We said our goodbyes and headed out to see what wildlife was up and about - a hippo still grazing, 2 crowned crane, teminck's courser, several patrolling hyena, a pair of dik dik, a pair of mating lions - the male had a fantastic mane - blowing in the wind - a second male was lying close by incase he ran out of steam! Our final sighting before breakfast was of a cheetah crossing a wide open plain......not a bad start to the day.
The big herd of wildebeest were still grazing and not venturing near the river to cross....I wonder when they will go?
We had breakfast near where we had it yesterday - on the banks of the Mara River near Governors camp. The wind was quite strong but behind the jeep we were out of it and able to enjoy the sunshine.
After breakfast we want to see if the mums and cubs were close to the dead tree trunk we had spotted them in yesterday - no luck but as we went around the marsh we could see a lioness ( the mother of the cubs) starting to stalk two grazing zebra who were totally oblivious to her.
She was low to the ground stretching every sinew to stay invisible (today's photo) and succeeded such that the zebra started to walk towards her. She lay motionless as one passed her and the other approached; we were convinced one would be lunch but whether she was spoilt for choice or not as she ran forwards she hesitated and the lucky zebras made good their escape - I captured the final moments on video! I felt sorry for her as she looked lean and in need of a feed - looking after cubs no doubt takes it out of her. We then set off for the airstrip and arrived at 11am. - not long after the plane arrived and we took off early - we were the last stop and now there were 10 on board all crossing the border to Tanzania via Maguire and Tarime. It was relatively effortless, we were collected from the airstrip guided through the border and transported to the Tanzanian airstrip for our 15 minute flight to Kogatende. So efficient were we that, even though the plane was there, we had arrived and hour before the scheduled take off time @ 2.30pm so we ate our packed lunches at the airstrip and gave the young boys watching the plane all the food we couldn't eat.... which they accepted with glee. We finally took off 30 minutes early - just after 2pm. On arrival we met our guide Jeremiah and spotter; we decided on a game drive first before heading to camp - it enabled us to see a cheetah.
We finally arrived at camp at 1700 and were welcomed by the hosts - Belinda and Gerrard. They had 14 other guests from the Italy, USA,Netherlands (albeit living in New York) and the UK so dinner was a convivial international affair.