The Mara River

Your driver-guide meets you at Kilimanjaro International Airport and talks you through the week. The drive west to Arusha takes about an hour, with Kilimanjaro behind you and Mount Meru ahead.

You stay just outside town, away from the traffic, with a garden to sit in. Take the afternoon to rest after your flight; tomorrow is an early start.

The road climbs past the Ngorongoro Crater rim and drops down to the Serengeti’s southern plains, which are dry and golden at this time of year. It takes about four hours to reach the Central Serengeti, game driving on the way.

The Seronera Valley has water all year, so it is one of the best places in Africa to see big cats. Look for lions on the kopjes and leopards in the riverside trees before you reach camp for the night.

You have the whole day at the Mara River. Your guide will take you along the banks to the crossing points, where herds of wildebeest and zebra bunch up on the edge, sometimes for hours, before one animal jumps and the rest follow. Big Nile crocodiles and pods of hippos live in the river.

You take a picnic lunch so you don’t have to leave if the herds are building. Between crossings there is plenty to watch: lions and hyenas following the herds, vultures on the banks, and the rolling plains around Kogatende.

You leave the Serengeti early and drive about three hours to the Ngorongoro Crater. The road goes down the crater wall to a floor of grassland, swamp and a shallow soda lake, where buffalo, zebras, lions, hyenas and the rare black rhino live all year.

You stop for a picnic lunch by the hippo pool, then climb out in the afternoon and drive about 30 minutes to your lodge in Karatu.