I apologise in advance as the stupid app deleted the text for this blog so I am trying to do it from memory 7 days down the line. Grrrrrrr....

After a morning cup of tea Charlie and I set off for our rendezvous to collect the payment documents which promised to finally give us entry to the Ngorogoro national park. We wandered back from the road junction slightly underwhelmed by the small scrap of paper we had been handed by the man on the back of a motorbike, but it had lots of stamps on and the officials out here seemed to like that so we remained hopeful.

We returned to scrambled egg on toast and were soon packed up, ready to exchange our scrap of stamped paper for a bigger one. On our third visit to our friendly (but singularly useless) Rafiki in the park office we were given the all clear and smiling slightly crazily Charlie turned PR3 towards the green slopes of the crater and gunned her along the smooth tarmac.

We arrived at the park gate and having had 3 guides push in front of us finally proffered our piece of paper, containing many stamps and signatures, to the disinterested looking desk ranger. All was looking good and there was lots more stamping and signing until Charlie dared to ask which of the 'special' campsites we would be staying in. These campsites cost $50 per person per night and had nothing, not even a suggestion as to which tree you should dig your hole behind... They are however situated within the park in some of the most incredible situations you can imagine, so although the cost was a bitter pill to swallow staying in them promised an awesome experience.

We were redirected to the 'fat-man' who was in charge of campsites and said portly gent's phone did not stop ringing whilst we tried to explain our situation. After an hour of wanting to scream at how chaotically backward the Tanzanian 'system' was we were finally told that we had been billeted at Lamala Research Post, but unsurprisingly they had no maps to show us where this remote and unsigned location was...

Having photographed the hand painted 3D relief of the crater to give us a vague idea where we might find Lamala we fired up Princess and roared through the foreboding arch and into our first park without a guide. It was thrilling and the odour of the cab was vastly improved as we wound our way up the steep rocky road, climbing to the craters rim. Suddenly the trees cleared and one of the most breathtaking views I have ever experienced filled the windscreen. A colossal natural amphitheatre lay below us ringed by escarpment, and the day was so cloudless that we could make out countless tiny creatures on the floor of the crater, looking like pieces in a monstrous board game far below. When we had come to terms with just how cool this was we left our positions amongst the Ngorogoro gods and continued along the crater rim to the next checkpoint.

It took all the self confident charm and smarm which Charlie and I could exude to persuade the desk dragon at the penultimate checkpoint to let us continue without a map or a guide. Having finally convinced her that we were worthy of the nessecary stamp we high tailed it out of the ranger post and on to the gate above the descent road, but not before taking some sneaky photos of their highly coveted maps of the area.

At an altitude of over 2200m the air was noticeably chilly as we passed numerous indifferent Masai on our way to the descent gate which sat at 9pm on the Ngorogoro clock face. Finally, after 2 hours of painful paper pushing and 3 days behind schedule, one last check of the much stamped paperwork was completed and we descended into the crater.

It was a good job PR3 was in low box and that the GoPro was running because the road was breathtakingly dangerous. Following the narrow rocky track hewn out of the side of the crater we descended slowly, allowing ourselves to take in the enormity of where we were and what we were doing. Soon we were spat out onto the crater floor and the wildlife threw itself at us. Zebras, antelope, pumbas, wildebeest all charged around as we crept through the huge herds in the heat of the sun. We decided to do a southern loop and trundled through the Lerai forest, all eyes peeled for leopards and rhinos though only the baboons revealed themselves. Back on the open plain we cruised happily seeing foxes and squadrons of flamingos amongst the herds of herbivores but it wasn't long before we got our predator fix. Noticing some tyre tracks at the side of the road we pulled over to see an adolescent lion poking its head out of the reeds 100m away from us, and as if on cue 3 lionesses and their protégés appeared from the swamp and walked up the hill to sunbathe just 25m from us. It was truly incredible and we just sat and watched as they played in the afternoon sunlight.

Aware that time was ticking on we left the content carnivores and headed to the north side of the lake which was pink with flamingos. From there we tracked down the hippo pools, getting a much closer view of the mesmerising bathing leviathans. With the sun starting to sink, and very aware that we still had to track down our secluded campsite, we headed towards our ascent route out of the crater directly opposite where we had entered. A shy hyaena watched us from afar as we headed off road following a grassy track which wound alongside a moderate sized stream. Our eyes saw leopards in every sausage tree and many theories took a long time to disprove but in the end the real highlight was the slightly hair raising river crossing which, although not strictly nessecary, did feel pretty awesome.

We wound our way up out of the crater, spotting secretary birds and a family of hyaena cubs before crossing the path of a very sedate elephant. Using our stolen photo maps to navigate we eventually tracked down the ranger post and a friendly guide jumped aboard Princess and navigated us to a remote clearing amongst some acacia trees using only the power of gestures.

With the sun sinking fast I left the others preparing supper and returned the smily but thankfully silent ranger to his post and retraced my tracks into the sunset to the clearing where a fantastic scene of bubbling pots and open beer bottles greeted me. Grinning like Cheshire cats Charlie and I set up our sleeping quarters and having arranged a masai guard, sat down to a delicious vegetable curry and to watch the sun set through the trees, cold beers in hand.

Our masai man was the strong silent type but he liked the curry and in return he produced a pile of firewood which required a significant amount of effort to be turned into a fire. Having only dipped one of my flip flops in liquid buffalo dung in the process we sat around the fire and reflected on what an incredible experience it was being in the park as the night closed in.

The stars were out in force when we returned to our tents and we lay and watched the unfamiliar constellations for a while before closing the tents portholes. We settled back to listen to the noises of the night which were complete with the slightly alarming sound of our new Masai friend's ringtone which started with a lions roar!