The beauty of the savanna

This would be our last game drive in East Africa, our final day in Maasai Mara. We were all feeling a little sad. Africa has been beyond our expectations, we’ve loved every minute of our time here. Nothing comes close to the feeling of peace and contentment being this close to nature. We set out at 5:45am to catch the sunrise over the savannah. The fiery red and bright orange colour of the sky were stunning. 

Gazelles up bright and early.

The symbolic lone acacia tree out in the middle of the savanna.

Ballooners out at dawn to catch the sunrise.

A couple of Thompson gazelles.

A morning feed for our baby zebra.

Not a morning person!

Ben drove us to the top of the hill...., where we could get out and walk about to stretch our legs. From here, we got an awesome 360 degree view of the savanna. And what a view it was!

During the migration season, the grass is not visible to the eye. All you see is thousands of animals pushed closely against each other. 

Looking out I could only imagine what it would be like to see the migration. It’s definitely something I would like to come back to see.

To remind us that we were actually here. 

Our African family for the last couple of weeks.

Mia teaching Lavigne the cup song from Pitch Perfect.

A very curious giraffe. 

The cutest and tiniest baby hippo we’ve seen so far.

A rare albino alligator.

We stopped for a picnic under this tree. When we looked up this was dangling over our heads. The unfinished meal of a cheetah, a leg and tail of a gazelle.

Maasai Mara is the only National Park which allows visitors to get out of their vehicles.

Thank goodness there were no hungry lions lurking around that day!

We came across this big fella not too far away but luckily we were safely back in the van.

Lion selfie.

You definitely do not want to be too close to this guy.

The last of the Big 5, the black Rhino. Mia has been searching for them for the last few days (I think secretly in her mind, she knows that she didn’t really “see” that rhino in Ngorongoro 😅). In our final few hours, Ben finds this magnificent beast for us. 

The perfect way to end our African adventure!