We collect you in Arusha early and drive west, climbing through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area with a stop at the crater rim viewpoint. It is a long drive, and we make it count: the descent onto the open plains beyond is one of the great approaches in Africa. We enter the Serengeti at Naabi Hill Gate around midday, stop for a picnic lunch, then game drive our way into the Seronera valley through the afternoon, watching the kopjes for lion. Dinner and overnight in the central Serengeti.

A full day in the Serengeti. We game drive from first light, when the cats are still moving and the light is best, working the Seronera river valley and the granite kopjes scattered across the plains. This is the richest big-cat country in the park: large resident lion prides, one of Africa's best chances of a leopard in a sausage tree, and cheetah hunting the open grassland. Picnic lunch in the bush. In the late afternoon we game drive our way out of the park towards the Ngorongoro highlands. Dinner and overnight near the crater.

We descend into the Ngorongoro Crater in the morning, dropping six hundred metres down the wall to the floor of an intact volcanic caldera. The wildlife here is resident and does not leave: black rhino, big-maned lion, elephant carrying heavy tusks, buffalo, and flamingo massed on the shallow soda lake. In one compact bowl you can see more in a morning than some parks give you in a week. We climb out around lunchtime and drive back to Arusha, dropping you at your hotel or at Kilimanjaro International Airport.