Birthday safari to the crater

Kitty's birthday was actually Saturday, so we started the day slowly (though somewhat early...) with some presents and cards on Mama and Daddy's bed. This was followed by a leisurly birthday breakfast of pancakes and, by special request, a vastly over-priced birthday kiwi:

After playing with lots of presents for a while we packed lunch up and headed off for Karatu, the town nearest Ngorongoro crater, for an afternoon of swimming and fun in the pool, only slightly delayed by trying to sort out the double booking of the rooms they'd made...

Much birthday splashing made for a fun afternoon, and special chairs for supper went down well too!

Then Sunday we headed into the Ngorongoro Crater for a day of safari fun, showing Grandma her first of lots of things and enjoying how even the common animals just got on with their business around us - tamer here than anywhere else we've been. BUt I guess they just get used to the huge numbers of cars...

Highlights were the baby Zebras and wildebeest, plus a pride of six lions including two fantastic maned males (I've wanted to see a good lion with mane for a long time!) that Grandma spotted for us (soon to be seen by the rest of the crater tourist population...), plus two rhino - one of which we spotted for ourselves too.

We enjoyed rather less the starter motor giving out on us - but at least we weren't next to the lions at that point, and there were some Maasai lads around to help push. And a hill at the picnic site to start again in the afternoon! The challenge was on Monday morning, after a cool night on the crater rim (with a fantastic view from our bedroom window:

Here I am bump starting the car on the cold morning to get us back down to town and to a mechanic so Grandma could take the car with driver/mechanic/guide on to Ndutu - and after only a few hours delay a new piece for the starter was found and installed, and off they went. Last heard of safely at Oldupai gorge...