Breakfast in the Bush

Charity was as keen as I to start early so we were in the car and ready by 5:45am so that we could be at the Oloololo Gate by 6am when it opens. This works well because the time it takes to leave Bateleur and to get down to the entrance is about 20/30 minutes. After going through the entrance formalities we were the first through the Oloololo Gate and ready to see what we could find.

Although the grass was high there was plenty of game around including elephants, giraffes and plains game. The light was fantastic and there was some amazing interactions with breeding elephant herds with some big tuskers.

We decided to enjoy a bush breakfast after all the activity of the morning. We found a lovely tree to see up camp and Charity brought out a portable bbq and all the precooked goodies from the kitchen that just needed to be heated up along with the eggs. I was helping out Charity and mentioned to her what a fantastic morning it was and the only thing that would make it better was seeing a cat. Low and behold as I started to eat my bacon and egg toastie I turned around and saw a lioness in the grass about 150m away from us. I turned to Charity and told her there was a lion and we both high fived and watched her as she made her way through the grass without looking at us. Charity told me to keep an eye on the lioness whilst she packed up the cooking gear so we could go and follow the lovely cat.

We quickly assembled our gear and took off after the lioness and were lucky to find her with a cub walking towards the main road from the Oloololo Gate. I had missed seeing the cub when I saw the lioness due to the height of the grass. These two were part of the Kichwa Tembo pride who were a strong coalition of about 12 lions (about 4 females and 8 cubs ranging from 6-18 months). They were hanging out in a culvert and the cubs were going in and out visiting each other. This allowed some great photo opportunities. After spending time with the pride and them deciding to start their naptime we decided to look for rhino. I had not seen any the previous day and we thought we would just head into the area where we were told they were the previous day.

Luck would have it that we found a rhino family with what we believe was a mum with two young. One was only young at around 18 months of age and the other around 3 or 4. They were close to the low thickets they seem to generally hang around in and were happy to entertain Charity and I for over 30 minutes. It was a fantastic sighting and although not super close due to their shyness I was able to get some great photos and videos.

Once we finished with the rhinos we decided to head back to camp for a late lunch. This was an excellent way to wrap up our morning in the Mara Triangle and I was happy to make our way back to camp for lunch.