Honeymoon Pt 15 - Safari - Ngorongoro Crater

So early in the morning we headed out to Ngorongoro, from here on we only have the safari photos taken on my SLR as the Canon was sadly lost with all of the remaining pictures on it (we ran out of room on the iPad and couldn't fit any more downloaded pictures on it so were keeping them on the SD card - devastated is not the word to describe me when we realised!)  :'(

Please imagine pictures of us posing in front of a giant painted Rhino and a massive Ngorongoro sign at the visitor's centre at the gate!  Oh and a lovely video and panoramic photo of the view of the crater when we got to the top of the ridge!  It was freezing but beautiful and we were lucky to get to see the view as it's often full of mist at that time of day.

On our way up the outside of the ridge we did spot this Elephant on the cliff face!  Apparently they are pretty good at climbing and wander all over the ridges around the crater.

When we got down into the crater we were so amazed at the sheer number of animals!  Also, due to being in a crater, the pictures all looked great with the ridge in the background.

The first animal we saw when driving in was this sleepy lioness who raised her head briefly only to see yet more tourists and flopped back down again.  They are so used to the 4x4s, she was asleep right next to the road.  We then saw another lioness walking across in front of us and roaring, looking back and around a lot - it almost seemed like she was looking for something - maybe her kids!?

There was definitely something interesting going on over the hill!

We were then lucky to see our first close up male Lion watching the herds wander past...

Again there were plenty of Zebras and Wildebeests about and we saw our first Buffalo and Jackal.

Buffalo

Having a rest!

More Wildebeest

Jackal

Just to make sure you see an accurate idea of what Safari is like - you do see a lot of other cars as they all communicate to try and find the animals for their guests.  Typically, we had just moved off and crossed the river only to see a Lion had appeared right next to where we had just been on the other side - you can just make him out next to all the 4x4s!

4x4s

Grey Crowned Crane

Elephant

Secretary Birds

Our evidence of having seen a Rhino - it was asleep and far away but we saw it, another one ticked off the Big 5!

Our first Hyena

This one had HUMUNGOUS tusks!

Wildebeest next to our lunch spot by the hippo pool!

After lunch we went to another part of the crater which was much greener and saw more hippos...

Hippo turning over!

And another elephant

Amazing African trees

Very cool tree.

We then ascended another part of the ridge to leave the crater for a long bumpy drive to the next park - The Serengeti!