Black Rhino

This sleight but fleet-footed cat has many foes. They are well down on the predator food chain but blessed with the faculty no other has and to see one, nostrils flared and body stretched out, hurtling across the plains is a sight every safari fan should see at least once. 

It appears that current guests (and there are plenty) into all four Kicheche Camps are all going back to nursery. Pick a camp, any camp and you will find their pre-school faunal classrooms bursting at the seams.   Cheetah kittens, lion cubs, elephant and rhino calves and even leopard cubs.  

When Nelson, Patrick and Charles say they have NEVER witnessed something before (20,000 gamedrives+), it immediately gives the carat value of these two remarkable days at Kicheche Bush Camp.  

Francis Saruni is a high plains sorcerer specializing in high carat spotted gems from the dusty but delightful plains of Mara North. Charming, funny and calm, he is on first name terms with seemingly every animal and indeed Maasai in this priceless Conservancy.    This week he has outdone himself as have the Mara Camp team as they have found their favourite daughter: Nelangu. On granite. With tiny cubs. Plural. Not content with that, Saruni then found her majesty bringing a huge lizard into her stony lounge.

'Twas the night before Christmas When all through the camp Every animal was stirring From lions to elephant (sorry) They had roared and they had sung And managers had glared In hoping that dawn's angel Would soon be there.

She ummed and ahed but finally made the right decision and grabbed ten days from London in her favourite back yard. Clare Bates we salute your decision and everyone else booked for this autumn, festive season and beyond.

Barry and Rachel, not for the first time this year, not a difficult choice Barry told me. Their words: 'We had a truly magical stay, across all three camps in the Mara. We adored the electric vehicle at Mara North and love the fact that Kicheche is so purposeful about conservation. The staff were astonishing as always, the perfect mix of attentive and relaxed. The safaris were action packed, we will never tire of watching these beautiful animals. Overall - magnificent.'

'And when they are done with trying to eradicate these noble horned creatures in the South they will turn their insidious but high-tech weapons East.' This is what a distressed guide told me last week.

Often it is a very fleeting moment, hard-earned, but brief, but a moment that is forever burnished into your memory mainframe, frequently beyond megapixels.

Out of the big smoke of a London corporate bank, meet Charlie - first day in the Mara ever. Try carry-on lion cub baggage, a cheetah and eland confrontation, breakfast with hippos, and then staggeringly, a full-on zebra take down from fifty metres away. In one day!