Godfrey had told us that we were lucky enough to have a lie-in as we had to wait for Suzie's bag to be delivered to the Precision Air office in Arusha. A lie-in to 8.30am - wowsers.

Precision had told us the bag would be there for 10am, then told Godfrey on the phone that it'd be definitely be there for 11am... and when we got there, Suzie was laughed out of the office - why would we think it could be there by now - it's got to be delivered! No chance of it being there until noon.

Sigh.

As we waited in the Land Cruiser, Godfrey bought newspapers to take on safari not for him to read but for him to distribute among people who work in the National Parks. They don't get to go home for months on end and don't get any deliveries of papers etc.

The bag finally arrived, Godfrey stopped at a local restaurant to pick up our packed lunches, and we set off. Tanzania gained independence from UK rule in 1961 - we saw the Independence Torch on a roundabout which represents the torch that Tanzanians took up Kilimanjaro to celebrate independence (though Suzie thought that they had actually taken the massive 20m-tall steel torch up the mountain at first). Apparently they quite liked the Brits and there are still some touches remaining - driving on the left, post offices with classic red branding, easy access to tea.

We drove for about two hours, stopping off for lunch at the side of the road where we learnt about the school system in Tanzania (1960s government broke down tribal system by sending kids to secondary schools away from home, thus mixing the population - Godfrey says this is a great thing, though it sounds a tad scary).

Gibb's Farm - shown to our room and Suzie actually asked "Is this really our room?" It was AMAZING. Massive, luxurious, two huge beds, three showers (one outdoor, one wetroom and one over the enormous bath hewn from sandstone), a fire - opening onto the living area (armchairs et al) and opening onto the wetroom and veranda overlooking the organing vegetable and coffee farm. We really hadn't excpeted anything quite that special. But don't worry - we managed.

We couldn't go on a walk to a waterfall as expected as it had been raining and was too slippery underfoot so we had a tour of their vegetable garden and coffee processing place. Did you know there are three layers to take off a coffee bean before roasting? Neither did we. The veg garden (well, farm) was great - brocolli, courgette, tomatoes, leeks, carrots - just like our house! Back to reception just as heavens opened and boy did they open wide. Nothing for it but G&T on our veranda, with the fire lit, reading. Then a lovely dinner, with the only problem being that the pudding was too small. Yum. Oh, and this place has unlimited, real coffee available all the time. Spent the rest of the evening in fornt of the open fire, reading and admiring violent thunderstorm, contented.

NEXT DAY - Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The crater: 260km2 The sight: breathtaking. We had a long drive up to and then down into the crater on mud roads, bouncing in our 4x4. Baboons, buffalos, ostriches, zebras, rhinos (in distance), cheetah, korie bustards, grant and thompson gazelles, coke hardy beasts, lions, hyenas, flamingos… and Masai. Wow.

Wow.

Most exciting thing we saw today was a cheetah trying to stalk gazelles but himself being followed by a hyena, looking to steal his kill. The cheetah wasn't willing to kill until he was free of the hyena. Both walked slowly towards our car, before crossing the road behind us, the hyena eventually giving up the chase.

We saw a Masai family collecting water (which their poor donkeys would carry out of the crater for them). And then the rain came. We are in the middle of the 'short rains’ season, when you might expect one brief but heavy downpour per day. And this was just that – massive but very brief. We got the roof covered in time, and by the time we reached the hippo pool for lunch (as you do…) it had stopped.

This lunch-stop was an example of Godfrey using his experience (he’s been doing this for 15 years) to give us the advantage, and to give us a quieter, more private safari. We arrived at a couple of minutes before 2pm and find about 10 cars parked. At 2pm they all drove off, leaving only us, hippos and some birds. This was also true of the cheetah – it was just us and the cat.

Stopped for a comfort break and Godfrey warned us to close the roof and windows. But the German couple who arrived behind us did not have such intel. As we emerged from the loos, we saw a crack team of black face velvet monkeys dive into their car and go straight for the good stuff – they knew that food would be in a cooler box, knew exactly where it would be, and knew how to open it to retrieve the goods. In this case, though, one monkey was faced with a bit of a challenge as the Germans’ cake he’d stolen (insert German cake gag here) was wrapped in clingfilm. He was persistent, was barely even distracted when a man and woman ran at him screaming in German, and freed his cake.

Meanwhile, we watched a lone male hippo wandering alone, in search of a pool of his own.

Time to drive out of the crater and to Oldovai…