The penultimate day of the Axelrod Expedition Thursday 21st July, 2016

I woke up this morning to the sound of palm leaves being torn down and so i went to open my curtains and lo and behold a small herd of elephants were just outside my room! In the distance the lions were roaring, it must have been a successful night for them. This morning we had breakfast on the shores of the Mara River with the hippos and crocodiles and amazing birdlife including vultures who had arrived to see about eating the dead gnu’s that were floating in the River. Banded mongoose came over to see what was happening and provided a lot of entertainment.

After a hearty breakfast we headed out to see what we could find and came upon a hunting party of lions who tried unsuccessfully to grab a wildebeest who was trying to get some water to drink…after that scare the wildebeest and zebras took off leaving hungry lions who decided the sun was too hot and lay under bushes to sleep. Down the road walking towards us came a “honeymooning” couple of lions behind them wildebeest watched anxiously . Finally they headed off to the shade and we went to lunch!!

This evening we went down to the river to see what was happening and were very fortunate to see a couple of attempted and full crossings which was soon exciting ….sadly crocs grabbed one of the young ones making Emily very sad. A first in a long time was seeing Topi crossing the river..who would have known they were such excellent jumpers. With the main body of the groups having crossed and the sun having set we headed back to the Lodge well satisfied with our wildlife experience today and feeling exhausted as though we too had been running these thousands of miles of migration