Northern Serengeti - Day 2

 So after the thrill of seeing a crossing yesterday we had rather got the taste for them so this morning headed back to the river.

When we arrived we could see a pretty large herd gathering on the opposite bank. We joined a few other cars watching and waiting. However after wandering to and fro for a bit they decided to walk/run off further down the river.

We, like most of the other cars decided to follow and so moved further down the river. Apparently there about 16 crossing points along the river that the wildebeest regularly use. However this year they have mainly been using those from 1 - 4. This morning they had gathered at crossing point 3 but then moved to crossing point 4.

So …..we sat….and waited…..and waited. We were gradually joined by other cars including some rangers. Apparently they often turn up if they see a large group of cars together. I would say at its peak there were probably about 25 cars waiting and watching.

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As you can see Alladin had rather cleverly positioned us to the far right of the other cars so that we could just about see crossing point 3 as well as crossing point 4. This turned out to be a very smart move.

After a couple of hours people gradually started to drift away. I guess they either got bored of waiting, needed toilet breaks etc.

During this time the wildebeest kept wandering between the 2 crossing points. The rangers kept a good eye on everything and controlled the position of the cars. Alladin explained to us that once a crossing starts and the rangers can see where the wildebeest are exiting the river then they allow the cars to move forwards as long as they don’t block the exit route.

Anyway after about 2.5 hours they suddenly turned back to crossing point 3 and crossed. Because we were so well positioned we were the first car to drive round the bend in the river and had a great view of them crossing.

Alladin positioned us so we could see them entering the water, crossing and exiting. Brilliant.

I love this video that Pete took where you can literally see the wildebeest leaping into the river. You will pleased to know that as far as I could tell they all made it across safely.

So we had now had 2 quite different views of a river crossing. Yesterdays where we were very close and they were coming straight towards us, but we couldn’t really see them exiting the river. Then today where we were a bit further away and were watching from the side and could see the whole thing. 2 great experiences.

After this we stopped for lunch, this time watching another group of wildebeest on the bank but again nothing happened.

This afternoon we left the river to do some general game viewing. We saw an oribi and a grey duiker very close together, great sightings for us.

Later in the afternoon we saw a huge group of wildebeest “migrating” south. The line just seemed to go on for ever.

We drove past them but further down the road the ones at the front decided to cross right in front of us completely blocking the road. All we could do was sit and wait until eventually they moved off the road allowing us to pass.

After this we decided it was time to head back to camp.

Once back in our tent, Pete and I had a bit of a discussion about the following day. We had originally allowed ourselves 3 full days up north so as to give us the best chance of seeing a river crossing. However having now seen 2 crossings we didn’t necessarily feel we needed a third day here. So we met up with Alladin and asked him what he thought about trying to move to the central Serengeti a day early. We were booked with Bush camps again in the central Serengeti so if they had a spare room tomorrow night I wondered if it might be possible. 

Alladin understood our suggestion but as it was now a Sunday night he was not sure about being able to get hold of anyone to try and sort this out. He had a couple of other suggestions so we just left it with him.

Anyway when we met for dinner an hour or so later he had managed to get hold of the person in charge of bookings at Bush Camps and sorted it all out so we would be able to move tomorrow which was great. Thank you Alladin 😀

And finally we had a rather nice sunset this evening. A lovely farewell. We had thoroughly enjoyed our time in the north and our stay at this Bush Camp but were happy to be moving on.