Serengeti Migration Ride

Arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport to be collected and driven thirty minutes to the night’s accommodation at the Golf Safari House on the Polo Club private estate. Each room has its own bathroom, and the lodge has wifi and a swimming pool, with spa treatments organized on request. If there’s a polo game taking place this evening, enjoy a sundowner at the club house.

An early start to catch your morning charter flight from Arusha to Ndutu airstrip in the South Serengeti. After the flight, usually about 40 minutes, but can be up to 1.5 hrs depending on routing (you may be flown over the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manayara or Tarangire National Park, a wonderful opportunity to see these iconic sites from the air), you will be met by safari vehicles. After a check-in at the National Park registration post you will set off for a drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park, passing by impressive rocky outcrops known as “kopjes” and river courses across the Serengeti’s famous grass plans. With luck the plains may be thick with migrating zebra and wildebeest, which arrive in the thousands after the rains to make the most of the fresh grass. The plains are also the wildebeests’ favored birthing spot to ensure that the newly born calves get the best start in life on lush new grass before setting off north to Kenya’s Mara plains. A drive of about 2-4 hours total will bring you to your first camp in the shade of a lovely flat-topped acacia. Meet the team of support staff, settle into your tents and enjoy a lunch in the shade of the dining tent. Then a short siesta before meeting the horses and their grooms, and, time allowing, go for a short evening ride. Return to camp for hot showers, drinks by campfire, and your first dinner together in the bush before the adventure really starts

Wake up at about 7am for tea and breakfast in camp, before mounting up at about 8am. Depending on the weather and movement of game, you might ride out for a long morning today, returning to camp for lunch and another ride or game drive in the late afternoon – or you might head out for a full day ride, meeting the backup team for a lunch out in the bush. Either way you should have a good chance of seeing the gathering herds of wildebeest, as well as giraffe browsing in the acacia scrub, zebra and perhaps predators, such as the hyena and jackal. Dinner and night in camp.

Today could be your first move to a new camp. An early wakeup at dawn gives you time to pack up before breakfast, then mount up to a new destination. You’ll ride through areas that have rarely been visited on a horse, perhaps passing Masai herdsmen or their small settlements, where the tribesmen live off the land as they have for centuries. After about 4 hrs of riding, meet the support team for al alfresco lunch in the bush and time to rest in the heat of the day, before heading off again to reach the new camp by tea time. It will be set up before your arrival, and is planned to be spectacularly situated in the middle of the vast open plains, where at peak migration time, the air will be filled with the braying of wildebeest. A cup of tea or a cold beer when you arrive in camp, followed by hot showers and dinner, listening to the sounds of the bush.

From today through Day 8 explore the region, riding across the open plains, into grassy valleys dotted with picturesque granite outcrops, swathes of whistling thorn and typically East African acacia trees. The route and your arrangements each day will vary with the weather and movement of game, but your guide will plan to ride to at least one more camp so you can discover another new area. On one of the afternoons or mornings the horses will be given a rest as you travel by vehicle to visit Olduvai Museum, one of the most important paleoanthropological sits in the world. The museum includes fossils and artifacts of our human ancestors and skeletons of many extinct animals who shared their world. Throughout the safari will will cross by horseback the Olduvai gorge, considered the “cradle of humankind.”

Wake early for breakfast and bid farewell to your horses and support team. Drive back through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to Karatu airstrip for your return charter flight to the lodge airstrip. After lunch there will be time to shop for souvenirs in Arusha if you wish before your vehicle transfer back to Kilimanjaro International Airport for onward flights.