5-Day Ndutu Calving Season Migration Safari, Tanzania

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1

   Arrival at Kilimanjaro International Airport and Arusha

   Our driver-guide meets you in the arrivals hall at Kilimanjaro International Airport with a name board and takes care of your bags. The drive west to Arusha covers about 50 km and takes roughly an hour, past coffee farms, banana groves and roadside markets, with Mount Meru filling the skyline on a clear evening. At the hotel there is time to rest after the flight and sort out cameras and binoculars for the days ahead. In the evening our guide drops by for a short briefing: the plan for the drive to Ndutu, what the herds were doing on the plains last week, and what to keep in your day bag. The calving herds move with the rain, so the guide’s latest reports from other drivers matter more than any map. Dinner and overnight at Arusha Coffee Lodge or Mount Meru Hotel.

   • Airport pick-up
   • Arusha Coffee Lodge or Mount Meru Hotel
   • Dinner
2. Day2
   

   Arusha to Ndutu via the Ngorongoro Highlands

   After an early breakfast you leave Arusha on the tarmac road through the Rift Valley, past Mto wa Mbu and up the escarpment to Karatu and the forested rim of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The road then drops onto the open plains, and the last stretch to Ndutu is on dirt tracks. Allow about six hours of driving in total, broken by a picnic lunch with views over the highlands. Ndutu sits inside the Ngorongoro Conservation Area on the edge of the Serengeti, around two small soda lakes, Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek. From December to March the short grass here grows rich in minerals after the rains, and that is what draws the herds south to calve. You spend the late afternoon on your first game drive among the wildebeest and zebra, then check in at camp as the light fades. Dinner and overnight at Ndutu Safari Lodge or Lake Masek Tented Camp.

   • Drive to Ndutu, afternoon game drive
   • Ndutu Safari Lodge or Lake Masek Tented Camp
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   Full Day with the Calving Herds at Ndutu

   This is the day the trip is built around. You leave camp at first light with a packed breakfast, because most calves are born in the early morning and a newborn wildebeest is usually on its feet within minutes. In peak season, which tends to fall in February, tens of thousands of calves can be born across the plains over a few weeks. Where there are calves, there are predators: lion prides, spotted hyena and especially cheetah, which hunt in the open short grass. Our guide reads the movement of the herds and the reaction of the mothers to find the action, then switches the engine off so you can watch without hurry. A picnic lunch in the shade of an acacia breaks up the day, and the woodland around Lake Ndutu is a good place to look for leopard and for the resident giraffe. You return to camp late in the afternoon. Dinner and overnight at Ndutu Safari Lodge or Lake Masek Tented Camp.

   • Full day with the calving herds
   • Ndutu Safari Lodge or Lake Masek Tented Camp
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
4. Day4
   

   Ndutu Morning Drive, Olduvai Gorge and the Ngorongoro Crater Rim

   You have one more early drive on the plains to see where the herds have moved overnight and to look again for cats on the hunt. After a late breakfast you drive east towards the Ngorongoro highlands. The road passes Olduvai Gorge, where Louis and Mary Leakey’s finds put this corner of Tanzania at the centre of the story of human origins; the small museum on the rim takes about an hour and explains the fossil beds below. From there the road climbs past Maasai bomas and grazing cattle to the crater rim, which sits at around 2,300 metres, so evenings are cool and a fleece is welcome. Your lodge looks straight down into the crater. Dinner and overnight at Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge or Rhino Lodge.

   • Morning drive, Olduvai Gorge
   • Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge or Rhino Lodge
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
5. Day5
   

   Ngorongoro Crater Game Drive and Return to Arusha

   You set off early with a picnic breakfast and descend about 600 metres on the steep track to the crater floor. The crater covers roughly 260 square kilometres and holds lion, elephant, buffalo, spotted hyena, large herds of zebra and wildebeest, hippo pools and flamingos on Lake Magadi. It is also one of the few places in Tanzania where black rhino are seen with some regularity, though a sighting is never certain. After a morning on the floor and a picnic lunch by the Ngoitokitok spring, you climb out and drive back to Arusha, about four hours on tarmac. Depending on your flight time, we drop you at Kilimanjaro International Airport or at a hotel in Arusha for an extra night (not included).

   • Ngorongoro Crater game drive, airport drop-off
   • Breakfast, lunch