The Ngorongoro crater picnic

Have a picnic inside the world’s fourth largest caldera, Ngorongoro Crater, which is known for its diverse landscapes and concentration of wildlife. If you come to Tanzania and don’t visit the crater, you’re missing out. It’s a great place for guaranteed animal sightings, perfect if you don’t have a long safari planned. During rainy season, you might spot endangered black rhinos and there are at least five prides of lion living on the crater floor.

After breakfast, we’ll drive over the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, descending 600 metres into its famous crater. Set in the highlands, the crater was formed by a volcanic collapse over 2.5 million years ago and has several different eco-systems inside. There’s rich riverine forests home to monkeys and huge bull elephants, Lake Magadi which draws flamingos and open savannahs where carnivores hunt. The game drive takes us through the crater, past various species of antelopes, buffaloes and all kinds of birds by the water.

We usually have lunch at one of the picnic spots near the marsh area, where you get spectacular sightings of hippos and black kites swooping through the air. The wildlife viewing in the crater is just phenomenal and you never know what you’ll encounter. Today, I saw a pride of lions kill a buffalo and after they’d eaten, the vultures came and started gorging with their hooked beaks before the hyenas arrived, chasing them off. It was a real snapshot of life in the wild.