As the afternoon starts we reach the western road that goes from Seronera two hours or more west towards Lake Victoria. It is not where we are planning to go, we don’t even know if it is possible given all the rains but we want to go as far as we can and maybe find the very rare Maasai Apalis. For which we need to get to a certain type of savanna, not the one we start to drive in. Still we already see Waterbucks and few other cars so it looks like a great road to try.
The impalas here are even more skittish than until now which is fun when we see them jump randomly on the hillside. And soon we see our first premium bird also, a few actually, the beautiful Meyer’s Parrot.
And the special birds keep coming like the showy Pin-tailed Whydah and the Purple Grenadier, both lifers for us.
This section seems to be a haven for various antelopes, now we see a Coke’s Hartebeest which is quite weird looking but special to see of course.
The section of the road here is quite dry but as we learn from a car coming the other way full of tsetse flies. That we soon experience ourselves through the open top. That we still keep open as we now enter the Maasai Apalis territory, they are attracted to the Whistling thorns that suddenly are quite common along the road.
Unfortunately even though there are lots of whistling thorns there are no apalis here, only lots of Rattling Cisticolas which are beautiful but still not what we are looking for.
Even though we cannot find the apalis we see lots of other birds. Even some mixed flocks just watching us, it can be a bit eerie especially with no other cars around.
There is also a Silverbird, a weirdly named colorful flycatcher type bird and lots of kites and eagles looking for something to eat.
And then the weather turns really bad and we reach our first pond in the road and we decide we have enough. We enjoy the herd of Topi (local Tsessebe subspecies) watching us turn around, bring the top down to avoid rain leaking into the car and drive towards Seronera where we plan to eat our lunch boxes.
However when we get to Seronera we are attacked by would-be guides trying to make us hire them. We cannot sit in peace in our car or outside so we decide to just explore and move someone else to eat. This is actually the only place in Tanzania that gave us an India vibe, where people where just ignoring a no and the fact that we didn’t desire a guide no matter how many times we told them.
Getting a bit farther away is a bit quieter and we can enjoy the area more including the metal buffalo which we really liked.
There are also some other interesting mammals like a beautiful small Nile Grass Rat and a curious Common Dwarf Mongoose just investigating the area.
Birdwise there is nothing that special at Seronera proper, just a few canaries and some weavers. But there are lots of birds and maybe we missed some as we were harassed by the guides whenever we tried to look for the birds.
In the end we drive south to the first river, where we noticed yesterday some side roads and pick one that is not used and stop there to eat lunch from our lunch boxes to some great views and without annoying guides.
It is actually a scenic area with some larks nearby but nothing else on the river or on the savanna surprisingly.
As the rain seems to be following us here we decide to return to the accomodation, maybe we can make it before it really starts raining. But on the way we find lots of cars stopped near a tree and after some asking and careful searching we find the culprit for the roadblock, a leopard is sitting in the tree hidden among the foliage. It is quite difficult to see even some guides to whom we show the leopard later have trouble seeing it.
Happy we continue on but with the distraction the rains catch up with us and it is like the flood gates have opened in the sky. Barely seeing due to the downpour we get at the intersection where we have to choose between the river crossing and rickety bridge and we choose river crossing as the road is much better to it.
This is not the best idea, as we get to the crossing the river is flowing at a much higher rate than in the morning. We try to decide and in the end we decide to turn around. And we are not alone, two other cars behind us do the same and inform us, nicely, that there is a bridge that we can take. Which we know but still it is nice for them to try to help us.
We cross safely the bridge and then as we approach the accomodation the rain stops. Or at least it ends, it seems it already passed through here with both the bustards and buffalos being quite wet but otherwise seeming quite fine and happy. We make it through mud back to the accomodation and then with no rain we spend the evening doing a walk with the guide near the camp before dinner. And tomorrow it is time to start back with one more major stop at Ndutu.
