Ruaha 2010

Date 10^th September 2010. We all gathered at my place around 4:00 am to start our journey to Ruaha National park. There were 7 of us in our group, me, my wife Kalani, Rohan Uncale & his wife Indira Aunty, Janaka, Lahiru and Somnas. At about 4:30 am we left from Dar es Salaam. Even though it was very early in the morning, there was a huge traffic jam near Weighing Bridge which is located about 50km from Dar es Salaam town. We reached Morogoro around 6:45 am. Morongoro town is located 200km away from Dar es Salaam city. We stopped near Sisal plantation to take some pictures.

After stopped there for about 15 minutes we began our journey again. By 8:00 am we reached Mikumi town. On our way to Mikumi from Morogoro we had chance to view game in route. We stopped at Mikumi for tea and spent about 30 minutes. 

Again we started our journey. After driving for another 4 hours we reached Iringa town around 12:45 in the noon. 

Iringa is the nearest town to Ruaha National Park, which is 120km away. Iringa to Ruaha was the hardest and most time consuming stretch in our journey due to rough roads. Sine we travelled by a van it took more than 4 hours.  At about 4:00pm we reached the gate of Tanzanians second largest national park. After getting park entry ticket we headed to our campsite “Foxes river side camp” en-rooted game drive.

Once we reached Foxes river side camp we were welcomed by the camp warden, an elderly lady. We were served with some snack and tea. We kept our baggage in our bandas near to river bank and walked to river bank to take some pictures of Hippos. After spending around one and half hours in the rive bank we return to our bandas to freshen up.









Evening around 7:30 we went to the main restaurant to have dinner. After having our dinner we returned to our bandas to sleep.

11^th September morning we got up early and got ready to go for a game drive. At about 6:30 am we left from our camp site to start game drive. We saw Giraffes, Lesser kuddu, impalas and some other animals. We stopped at a pick nick site to have our break fast. After that we had about 4 hours game drive and returned to the camp site and had our lunch. During our game drive we saw many lioness and many other animals. Here below is my Ruaha photo stream. Click play button to start.

Around 3:00 pm we have started our journey back to Dar es salaam. One day is not enough at all to discover and view Ruaha national park. I wished I could spend at least 1 more day.

Our initial plan was to drive to Iringa town, stay over night there and drives back to Dar es Salaam the next day. However we reached Iringa town earlier than we expected. Therefore we decided to drive to Mikumi and stay over night. By 9:30pm we were able to reach Mikumi town. Since it was a long weekend all good lodges, hotels and guesthouses were fully booked. Therefore we had to stay at a small guesthouse which was not very nice. 

12^th September we got up early morning, had our breakfast at Jenisis hotel and drove to Morogoro town. We spent some time in Morogoro town, had a snack and started our journey back to Dar es Salaam at about 12:30, by 3:30 pm we reached to Dar.

End of another successful safari.