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What's happening at Ndutu?

June 2005

Ndutu is now dry, drier than normal. The wildebeest have long since left but large herds of eland are still to be seen on the plains. I counted a herd of over 200 recently which was a magnificent sight, but impossible to photograph. These beautiful animals are the most nervous of all the Serengeti antelopes and you never get close to them. What intrigues me is where do the all the eland go once they leave the plains, does anyone know?

After reporting the trampling of (Snap) the crocodile in the Big Marsh by a zebra in February. We feared for his/her well being so it was with great joy that it has been seen again this week cruising the pool in the swamp. No one had seen the croc for nearly 3 months and we were getting a little worried about him after his ill-fated attack on a zebra.

Logistics is one of our biggest challenges at Ndutu. Making sure we have enough fresh fruit & vegetables and cold beers for our guests is only part of the job. Bags of sugar, rice, flour and cement are just as important, so are the boxes of nails, spare parts for the cars, diesel for the generators, material for the staff uniforms and a thousand other things that can be difficult to find at times. All these are brought in by our own vehicles, which can be fun during very wet periods when rivers are in flood, lorries and buses trying to climb up the Ngorongoro highlands become hopelessly stuck and block the roads for hours.

Our cars take quite a beating on the rough roads, broken shock absorbers and punctures are common. Our drivers are great bush mechanics because they have to be. The roads always feel much worst when you carry panes of glass, mirrors or fridges and freezers, you feel every bump. The only thing we have no control over is the gas we use for cooking. This comes in a large tanker truck. We’re obviously better organised than the Gas Company as we frequently run out of gas. It’s now been several weeks since we last had gas. This makes it very hard work for the kitchen staff as they have to cook everything over wood fires. Bread is baked in a tin trunk over hot coals. It takes some skill to bake like this as the temperature control is limited to scraping hot coals off the box to reduce heat or heaping them on to add heat. Many loaves a day are made as well as bread rolls for breakfast, biscuits, cakes and even chocolate eclairs if the cook is in a good mood.

The Masek pride has been in much evidence this past week. Many a night we’ve been kept awake by their constant roaring. Elephants have been passing through the Lodge this week much to everyone’s delight. And during May two old buffalo bulls took up residence for a while. It was great to have them here but a bit tricky walking back to the rooms at night, though sadly they now seem to have moved off, although a family of warthogs seems to have moved in and replaced them. They can be seen most days grazing or trotting around the lodge. Plenty of giraffes visiting at night and it’s a common to hear them walking down the paths as they feed from the trees between the rooms.

Hyenas whooping, during the night is a very soothing sound when tucked safely up in bed. Guests who leave their shoes outside on their verandahs at night are unwise to do so as hyenas find these irresistible to chew and I guess the smellier the shoes the better. Not far from the big Marsh there is a hyena den with small cubs. I don’t normally go gooey over baby animals but these hyena pups are very cute although I’m quite sure even at this small stage they could bite chunks out of you.

Although dry around Lake Masek, the lake itself is still stunning. On a recent sundowner trip to Masek we enjoyed watching the flamingoes on the lake along with a small group of pelicans and numerous waders on the lakeshore. A family group of elephants came down to drink close to where the resident hippos live and on the way home we came across a large group of buffalo. In the past the only view you saw of the Masek buffalo was a large cloud of dust as they cantered off into the woodlands. But these days they are calming down very nicely, even though they seem to stare at you menacingly from under their bossed horns. A beautiful sunset followed by the planet Venus shinning brightly in the West, and a cold beer around the campfire was a lovely ending to the day.

Paul.