Tarangire National Park
From ancient, towering baobabs and huge herds of elephants often hundreds strong to more than 500 bird species and plains game aplenty, there’s so many reasons to fall in love with this incredible place.
In the dry season between June and October the Tarangire River (the only permanent water source in the park) attracts herds of up to 300 elephant, buffalo, giraffe and many antelope species, including the long-necked gerenuk – you won’t see them in the Serengeti. Visit Tarangire at this time of year and you’ll see concentrations of animals rivalled only by those in the Ngorongoro Crater – without the crowds.
Ngorongoro Conservation Area
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is part of the Serengeti ecosystem and adjoins the Serengeti National Park. The Ngorongoro Highlands presents a different side of Tanzania among the coffee farms before a dramatic descent to the game-rich Ngorongoro Crater, a World Heritage Site. Ngorongoro Crater is one of the wonders of the natural world – an extinct volcano that collapsed in on itself around 25 million years ago, forming a vast caldera that hosts around 20,000 animals. Large numbers of wildebeest, buffalo, gazelle, and zebra graze on the open grasslands in the crater, and they attract the predators, the black-maned lion, the leopard, and hyena.
Elephants feed on the giant sedges and hippo wallow in the pools. The Fever Tree forests shelter monkeys, bushbuck, waterbuck, and the few black rhinos that have taken refuge here. A soda lake attracts water birds, including flamingos.
Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is the largest and best-known of all the Tanzania National Parks covering an area of 14,500 sq km. Its northern boundary is the border with Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve which is included in the Serengeti eco-system. With no fences, the animals wander freely between both countries. Located to the north and west of Ngorongoro, the vast Serengeti plains sustain the greatest and most spectacular concentration of wildlife found anywhere in the world.
The Serengeti is also known for its large prides of lions and the magnificent black-maned lions are often seen surveying their territories from the top of the rocky outcrops. Leopards are relatively numerous and are to be found during the daytime resting in trees along the Seronera river.
Every year the Great Migration of over 1.5 million animals, mostly wildebeest but also zebra and Thompson’s gazelle, follow a 1000 kilometre journey from the Serengeti to the fresh grazing of the Masai Mara. By October they will be returning from Kenya to their calving grounds in the southern Serengeti.
