Day 7:

As we entered the park we began to see animals straight away. We were heading for our campsite on the way we saw impalas, zebras and giraffes standing right beside the road and lots of playful baboons. We then passed a small water hole and went over a bridge, the water was full of hippos. We arrived at our campsite which was just a toilet block and another straw roof with wire as walls for cooking and storing food in. We set up our tents in a circle around where the fire was going to be. We then got back in the truck and went for another game drive.

This time we came across a couple of elephants and then a larger male elephant on his own with huge tusks. We also saw some buffalo near to the road and more baboons. We visited another watering hole where this time there were hippos out of the water so we could see them fully. In the distance we could see several cars gathered together so we decided to go investigate what they were looking at. So Pete our driver sped out through the Serengeti towards the cars taking us down some pretty muddy tracks and giving us a bumpy ride. When we got there we found a leopard and a cub walking along the side of the road. We couldn't believe how close we were to a leopard as they are the hardest of the Big 5 to spot. We followed the leopard for a short while before Pete had the hard task of turning Shaggy (the truck) around!! We thought at one point we had got stuck in the mud again but thankfully we hadnt. We returned to our campsite as it was starting to get dark and we had a nice dinner around the fire.

The next interesting part of the trip was the night in the tent!! Aly our guide had told us no food in the tents, if you need to pee do it just outside your tent dont go walking to the block, as there were no fences around the camp so there could be animals around!! We were told we were safe in our tents as the animals dont associate tents with animals and that elephants wouldn't stand on a tent because it thinks it is an ant hill and they like ant hills!! Sio there we were me and Sarah in our tent nicely sleeping when all of a sudden there was a massive howl right outside our tent followed by barking. It was a hyena!! It continued to howl a few more times. Me and Sarah were both awake whispering to each other OH MY GOD, it was really scary as you could hear it walking around and its howl was so loud and piercing!! Gradually the howl got quieter so they had gone away. Eventually it seemed when i had got back to sleep it howled again really close. We have never been as glad to get up at 6am before!!