Sunday, July 27, 2008

Tanzania pics!










Just a small selection of the 783 I took while I was out there!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Oops! Forgot about my blog!

Oh dear - I've been so busy with the new job and holiday that I had completely forgotten to update here!

So, the new job's going really well, slowly getting the hang of it all - I started on 23rd May, and have been out and about quite a lot, which is great. Much more interesting than planning, which I am not missing at all (well, maybe a little as this is so completely different to anything I've done before!). Really challenging, but loving the learning curve!

On 26th of June I went to Tanzania for our (probable) last family holiday. We'd just found out that my brother is now a doctor, and my sister had got the 2:1 she wanted, so that was great news.

Tanzania was amazing - we got back on Wednesday morning, though I have to say that three weeks in a 4x4 is probably too much - not enough exercise, too much food, and escalating levels of moaning due to awful roads and a couple of 10 hour journeys!

I only took 780 pics, a modest amount for me really, but I'm really pleased with most of them. I sort of binged on sunsets quite a lot! Hopefully there will be some in there that could be entered in to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year (2 more into the semifinals this year; that's two out of the 16000+/32000, which isn't too bad I suppose!).

We started off in Arusha, driving to Tarangire NP (lots of elephants), then Lake Manyara (flamingos, monkeys and tree-climbing lions!); Oldupai Gorge (the Cradle of Mankind - the Leakey's dig for hominid remains); Serengeti (lots of lions, sunrise balloon ride then amazing bush breakfast! And of course our magical leopard encounter - see pics!); Ngorogoro crater (AMAZING!!!!); Arusha NP (no views of Kili due to clouds - gutting); a day hiking in Usumbara mountains (wonderful views, totally knackering climb!); Mikumi NP (some lions, but pretty quiet really); Udzungwa NP (beautiful tropical rainforest - so much wildlife - best park I went to I think); Selous Game Reserve (awful 10 hour drive there - most people fly in and we can now see why! Again, quite quiet, but river and lakes had great bird life) and then 1.5 days in Dar before heading back (walks on the beach had to be done without valuables inc. cameras due to high probability of being mugged by local fisherman - sort of typifies Dar really, but nice to chill out for a couple of days!).

So you can see we packed an awful lot in! And now I have to catch up with work...