Join the Serengeti Wildlife Migration on Horseback

When to Travel:

Year-Round
See below for dates

Duration:

8 days / 7 nights

Riding Level:

Intermediate-Advanced

Unfold Africa’s beauty on horseback, riding horses on a mobile safari across the grasslands of Tanzania beneath the backdrop of Mt. Kilimanjaro, in the company of a wide variety of wildlife on this spectacular horseback holiday.


Horses

The horses are a mixture of breeds suitable for the tough terrain, ridden English-style in general-purpose saddles. They are used to living at close quarters with wild animals and are familiar with being amongst big game. Each horse is schooled for the sole purpose of carrying guests safely through the African wilderness.


Riding Level

Intermediate - Advanced

All riders must be confident at all paces, of intermediate level of fitness and riding ability, and have with them a sense of adventure.


Tack and Terrain

English tack (general purpose saddles)

Terrain consists of open, grassy plains, hills, rocky outcrops, rivers, and mountains. The wide-open terrain is great for long gallops, and even sometimes a little jumping, in addition to the excitement of riding on safari.


Accommodation

Tented Camp Mobile Safari

The safari tents are comfortable and spacious, 4 X 4 meters with mosquito netted doors and windows to allow for ventilation but still remain insect-proof. Each tent has a carpet, bed, bedside table and water bottle, bed and cotton linen and a solar light. Outside each tent there is a veranda with chairs and a wash stand that you share with your tent partner. Each tent has its own bush toilet and bucket shower. The toilet is a traditional short drop style toilet with a nice wooden toilet seat over a metal box with open sides. Our motto is "Rhinos cover it please do the same". There is a small mound of dirt with a trowel next to the toilet seat for this purpose. The shower is a traditional start gazing canvas bucket.


Dining

The food is of great standard with professional bush chefs, trained by a gourmet chef from South Africa. He or his trained chefs create delicious and highly entertaining dishes. Breakfast is of traditional cowboy style, served with homemade juice and exotic African fruits. Lunch is alfresco, enjoyed somewhere out in the wild under a nice shady tree, it may either be vehicle supported or we may carry it in our saddlebags. Dinner is a three-course affair, with a mix of local and international cuisine, always served with newly baked bread and fresh salads and herbs.


Itinerary

  • Arrive to Kilimanjaro International Airport where one of our drivers will meet you. The drive from the airport to the lodge takes about 40 minutes. Your first night is spent at a lodge situated on a golf, polo, and wildlife estate. Meet up with the rest of the group (unless it is a private safari), followed by sundowner and dinner hosted by one of the guides for the safari. If there is a polo game on, sundowner will be at the polo club.

  • After breakfast we drive for ten minutes down the road to catch a late morning flight to Ndutu airstrip in the southern Serengeti. After the flight, depending on where you fly in, anything between 2-4 hours drive, depending on routing (you may be flown over the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara or Tarangire National Park, a wonderful opportunity to see these iconic sites from the air), you will be met by a safari vehicle at Ndutu. A short wait whilst you are checked-in at the Ngorongoro Conservation area registration post, then set off driving, past impressive rocky outcrops known as “kopjes , river courses and across the Serengeti’s famous ‘short grass plains’. Prime grazing area for migrating wildebeest during the early months of the year, with luck (always dependent on the weather!) the plains may be thick with wildebeest which arrive in their thousands after the rains to make the most of the fresh grass. The plains are also the wildebeests’ favored birthing spot - it is one of nature’s miracles that females delay giving birth until the rains and grass arrive in an effort to ensure their newly born young get the best start in life, a chance to build their strength on lush new grass before setting off on the long march north to Kenya’s Mara plains. About 2- 4 hours in all, you eventually arrive at the spot chosen for the first camp in the shade of a lovely flat-topped acacia. Meet the team of support staff, settle into your tents and a welcome lunch in the shade of the mess tent. Then, a short siesta, before meeting the horses and their grooms, and time allowing, an evening ride to try them. Return to camp at sun set for hot showers, drinks by the campfire and your first dinner together in the bush, before tomorrow when the adventure really starts!

  • Five more days to explore, riding across the open plains, into grassy valleys dotted with picturesque granite outcrops, swathes of whistling thorn and typically East African flat toped acacia trees. The route and arrangements each day will vary with the weather and movement of game but your guide will aim to ride to at least one or two more camps so you can discover new areas. On one of the afternoons or mornings the horses will be given a rest and you jump into the vehicles to visit Olduvai Museum, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. The museum includes fossils and artifacts of our human ancestors and skeletons of many extinct animals who shared their world. Throughout the safari we will most definitely cross this gorge ‘Cradle of human kind” on one or more occasions on horseback. Following day another early start with tea or coffee served at your tent, ride out for 3-4 hours of riding, meet the back-up crew for an al- fresco lunch in the bush and time to rest in the heat of the day, before heading off again, aiming to reach the new camp by tea time. Set up ahead by the back-up, tonight’s camp might be spectacularly situated in the middle of the vast open plains, where, at peak migration time, the air will be filled with the braying and mesmerizing grunts of wildebeest. A cup of tea or a cold beer when you arrive in camp, followed by hot showers & dinner, listening to the sounds of the bush.

  • Four more days to explore, riding across the open plains, into grassy valleys dotted with picturesque granite outcrops, swathes of whistling thorn and typically East African flat toped acacia trees. The route and arrangements each day will vary with the weather and movement of game but your guide will aim to ride to at least one or two more camps so you can discover new areas. On one of the afternoons or mornings the horses will be given a rest and you jump into the vehicles to visit Olduvai Museum, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. The museum includes fossils and artifacts of our human ancestors and skeletons of many extinct animals who shared their world. Throughout the safari we will most definitely cross this gorge ‘Cradle of human kind” on one or more occasions on horseback. Following day another early start with tea or coffee served at your tent, ride out for 3-4 hours of riding, meet the back-up crew for an al- fresco lunch in the bush and time to rest in the heat of the day, before heading off again, aiming to reach the new camp by tea time. Set up ahead by the back-up, tonight’s camp might be spectacularly situated in the middle of the vast open plains, where, at peak migration time, the air will be filled with the braying and mesmerizing grunts of wildebeest. A cup of tea or a cold beer when you arrive in camp, followed by hot showers & dinner, listening to the sounds of the bush.

  • At one point during the safari (weather allowing) you will spend the night in a lightweight fly camp, sleeping under mosquito nets. This morning you jump into the vehicles (there will be a game drive with a picnic lunch on route, crossing the short grass plains and looking out for cats such as cheetah, lion and leopard which thrive here, as well as elephant and the flamingo which gather on the area’s soda lakes. Later in the afternoon you will reach the fly camp in time for sundowners followed by dinner under the stars.

  • An early wake-up call to say farewell to the horses and crew. The drive this morning will be up the Ngorongoro highlands and breakfast will be on route overlooking the world famous Ngorongoro Crater. After checking out at the gate you head to the African galleria, a great place to buy anything from arts, tanzanite or just a small Tanzanian gift. Shortly after you head to the Manyara Airstrip followed by a 40 minutes flight back to the estate, thereafter vehicle transfer back to Kilimanjaro International Airport for onward flights.


Dates


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Price Includes:

  • All accommodations

  • All meals

  • National Park fees

  • All riding activities, including tack and equipment

  • Transportation in-country (including to and from airport)

Does not include:

  • Airfare to and from Tanzania

  • Additional travel costs such as riding apparel and insurance