Safari veterans - Pete & Sophie, George and Philly - all returned for the second consecutive year to head off to some of my favourite places in Tanzania: Bougainvillea Lodge in Karatu, Ngorongoro Crater and Ndutu on the edge of the Serengeti plains. It turned out to be among the best visits I've done - a worthy end for what may sadly be my last big trip here.
We saw some amazing things: half a dozen of the Crater's extremely rare black rhinos and more cheetahs in five days than I've seen in the previous four years. Some of you, no doubt, will also be interested to know we beat our record for secretary bird sightings with some ease. And among the other astonishing sights was this guy modelling what he seemed to think was the new season safari fashion - the sunburned torso. The guide books suggest avoiding brightly coloured clothing so you don't scare the animals. But this surely is taking it a bit too far. Quite distressing.
Some of our fellow guests at Ndutu turned out to be a BBC film crew getting footage for next year's new series called something like Natures Greatest Events. They said they were mainly interested in following a pride of lions among the great wildebeest migration - but they seemed to spend a fair chunk of their time filming the local erupting volcano. Sadly, despite Pete's charms, we didn't get a ride in their helicopter. Neither did I manage to sell them my 30 second footage of lion cubs shot rather shakily on my digital camera.
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