6 Days Calving Season in Ndutu Area

With a full day to explore this diverse area, your driver-guide has plenty of opportunity to show you excellent wildlife while explaining the fragile, fascinating ecosystem that makes Ndutu so distinctive. Because part of the area sits within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area rather than the Serengeti itself, off-road driving is permitted here, ground conditions allowing — a genuine advantage when tracking predators through the grass.

A defining feature of the landscape is its collection of small, salty lakes, whose water sustains wildlife here year-round. Lake Masek, comparatively deep, stays largely unchanged through the seasons, while the shallower Lake Ndutu varies with rainfall. At this time of year, with newborn calves everywhere and predators following close behind, wildlife viewing here can be genuinely dramatic — alongside the more familiar lion, cheetah, and hyena, keep an eye out for aardvark, porcupine, and civet cat.

Overnight again at your Ndutu lodge.

After breakfast and a final morning game drive in Ndutu, you'll set off for the Central Serengeti, a journey of around 80km taking roughly 2 hours. The sheer vastness of the Serengeti plains becomes apparent almost immediately, along with the seemingly endless herds crossing the landscape on their annual trek.

On arrival, you'll check in for lunch before your first game drive introduces you to the central part of the park, often described as the Serengeti's wildlife 'hub.' The distinctive rocky outcrops, or kopjes, quickly become familiar — the animals certainly don't ignore them, with big cats occasionally using them as sunbathing spots or lookout posts.

Waking up in the Serengeti is something genuinely special, with the sights, sounds, and smells of Africa all around you as a full day of adventure in the world's most famous national park lies ahead. Your morning game drive takes in the stunning scenery, ever-changing light, and consistently entertaining wildlife of Serengeti National Park, all explained by your expert driver-guide.

The Seronera River weaves through this area, providing water for all species of wildlife, while the landscape's distinctive kopjes characterise the view in every direction. Lunch is an unforgettable experience enjoyed out in the bush, before an afternoon spent continuing the search — lion, leopard, elephant, zebra, cheetah, and antelope are all realistic possibilities on the same drive.

Overnight again at your Central Serengeti lodge.

Today your adventure takes you out of the Serengeti National Park and leads to another of Tanzania's true wonders, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. After a morning game drive and lunch, you'll head south-east toward Ngorongoro, a distance of around 145km taking roughly 3.5 hours, passing Simba Kopjes — familiar from The Lion King — en route to Naabi Hill Gate, marking the divide between the two conservation areas.

This afternoon brings your first sight of the spectacular, incomparable Ngorongoro Crater, the world's largest intact volcanic caldera and the heart of the Conservation Area of the same name — unsurprisingly, another of Tanzania's UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You'll check in to your lodge on the crater rim in good time to settle in before tomorrow's descent.

From your accommodation, you'll set off after breakfast with a 6am departure, reaching the rim before descending into the vast crater itself. On one side sits the Lerai Forest, a pocket of near-tropical mountain forest and good elephant country; nearby, swampland sometimes called the 'elephant graveyard' draws aging male tuskers to its soft grasses in their final years.

The crater supports around 120 lions with well-defined territories, alongside some 15,000 wildebeest, 9,000 zebra, 400 hyenas, and roughly 50 black rhino, with buffalo, Thomson's gazelle, and eland also present in numbers, and flamingos often visible on Lake Magadi. After your crater visit and lunch, you'll begin the roughly 4-hour, 250km journey back to Kilimanjaro International Airport, connecting with your onward or departure flight.