Today we drove all the way from Ngorongoro Crater to Northern Serengeti. The roads were nothing short of horrendous and it was a very long, 9 hour drive. At times we would overtake trucks on a dirt track full of potholes the size of a small car and I seriously thought we were going to die.

We stopped about an hour in to visit a Maasai village, which was fascinating. The villagers sang a welcome song for us and did a dance. The ladies grabbed Lidia and incorporated her in the dance, which really was no more than walking around in a circle singing.

Then the men gathered around and started bouncing up and down, Maasai style. One of them took my hand and dragged me into their line and told me to start jumping. I thought I was pretty good, and I still maintain that I was kicking their butts until they got their heavy jumpers involved to save embarrassment. Lidia has a different view.

Anyway, after my successful jumping demonstration, we entered the village and had a look around. A Maasai warrior invited us into his hut, which is a tiny, round structure made from cow dung. We went in and sat down in very cramped conditions. He explained to us that 5 people and a calf slept in this hut. There was a fire in the middle of it and a tiny hole in the ceiling, but it was not smoky in there.

He explained a little about Maasai life to us and then we went out to look at the usual crap they try to sell to tourists. Actually, some of it was pretty nice; beaded bowls and bracelets, etc. so we bought a bowl just to contribute to their village.

On the way out we took some photos of a young girl who was mixing cow dung with ash and water with her bare hands to make a hut. These photos will make good ammo whenever anyone at home whinges about how hard their life is.

After the village, it was back on the road for hours and hours of driving, enjoying the "African massage", which is what the locals call driving on roads that are not fit for a donkey, let alone a car. There was a bit of respite along the way when we reached the Serengeti National Park and we went "off-road" (The off-road roads were better than the actual roads) to do some game viewing. We saw a family of four cheetahs on a termite mound and a couple of leopards in a tree, which was pretty exciting. There were also numerous lions along the way, some of them sitting on top of the giant rocks that dot the landscape.

As we neared our camp in Northern Serengeti, the roads became tracks, which were actually smoother than the roads and the rocky landscape gave way to massive, rolling, green plains. There were literally thousands and thousands of wildebeest, zebra and gazelles grazing.

Every year, 2,500,000 wildebeest and 250,000 zebra migrate from Maasai Mara in Kenya, south to Ngorongoro to feed on the volcanic fed grass and to breed. Seeing these massive herds of wildebeest was overwhelming at times. It was almost surreal.

We arrived at the Kaskaz Mara tented camp at around 6:00 and were shown to our tent. I thought it was spectacular; a huge tent with floorboards, a king size bed and a bathroom with shower, but Lidia wasn't too happy about the fact that the shower didn't drain properly. For accommodation in the middle of a Serengeti plain with nothing around for hundreds of kilometres, I thought it was none too shabby.

The next morning we met our local driver, Ali, who took us on a game drive. We saw the usual suspects; lions, hyenas, cheetahs, etc., but the absolute highlight of the day was seeing a river crossing. The 2,500,000 wildebeest must cross the Mara river every year as part of the migration and they form great herds on the other side of the river and eventually leap into the water and swim across the crocodile infested river.

We sat at one crossing point for a good 2 hours watching a herd of about 1,000 animals surging forward and then changing their minds over and over again. They would seem to build up in noise and start to run in a huge surge towards the river and then turn around and go back. After 2 hours of this we got bored and asked the driver to move on. He reluctantly agreed to leave and 10 minutes later heard on the 2 way radio that a crossing was happening a little way from where we were.

We hurried over there and saw thousands of wildebeest leaping into the river and braving the strong currents to swim across to our side. There were 3 massive crocodiles swimming around them and one of them took a wildebeest right in front of us. There were a mother and baby wildebeest that were swept downriver by the current, right in front of another crocodile. They made it to the edge of the river, but were blocked by a huge rock and couldn't get out of the water. They tried for about 10 minutes, with a croc right behind them. Our guide explained that the crocs will only take animals by the head and therefore wasn't trying to get them. We could hear the mother and baby bellowing with distressed sounds, and could see that they were exhausted. Eventually the mother got out and ran away, leaving her baby. The baby tried to swim back into the river to find another way out and we thought it was a goner. But a few minutes later, it found it's way back to the bank and managed to haul itself out of the river, walking away exhausted. We were so happy that it survived, but the sad fact is that 200,000 wildebeest die during the great migration every year. The carcasses litter the river and stink terribly. Once the animals reach their destination in Ngorongoro, they give birth to about 800,000 babies and then begin the migration back north again.

I guess the crocodiles and vultures need to eat too!

On the way to the river, we came across a mother lion with two cubs. We drove right up next to them. Suddenly the mother stood up, right next to Lidia's side of our open safari vehicle and started walking towards us. She had an intense look on her face. Lidia panicked and started telling the driver to get out of there, but he just sat there and said it was all ok. Apparently the lioness had spotted a lone wildebeest that was injured and she was stalking it. She wasn't at all interested in eating Lidia. She walked right past us and started stalking the wildebeest. The two cubs, who apparently weren't old enough to participate in a kill, somehow knew that they had to find a bush to hide in while Mum was hunting and headed straight for the dense shrubbery around the river. The wildebeest was still miles away, so we left the lioness to continue her hunt and left the area.

Lidia wanted to relax in the camp for the afternoon drive, so I went out by myself with Ali. No sooner had we left the lodge than we came across a cheetah sitting next to a small hill. She was pregnant and was a beautiful animal. I managed to get some awesome photos and then we moved on.

Shortly afterwards, Ali came across his uncle, driving another safari vehicle, who told him to follow him. He took us to a tree that was growing out of an enormous rock. There was a lioness sitting on the rock and a leopard in the tree. Apparently, lions and leopards don't like each other, and a lion will kill a leopard to remove competition, so the leopard wasn't going anywhere until the lion had had enough and decided to leave. Luckily for the leopard, lions can't climb trees.

On the way back to the camp, Ali saw that the cheetah was still in the same spot, however a herd of Thompsons gazelle were very near to her. He thought she might try to catch one of them, so we pulled over and waited to see what would happen. About 5 minutes later, the cheetah shot out of her hiding place like a bullet and started chasing down a gazelle. She was moving like a rocket, but I kept my camera on her and snapped a heap of shots, until she eventually caught the gazelle. When I checked my photos, I had captured 4 fantastic shots of her chasing the gazelle. We drove up to her and watched her finish the poor little animal off, but left before she started eating it.

When we got back to the camp, the staff had organised to take Lidia and I to watch the sunset and have drinks and snacks for our last night in the Serengeti, which was nice.