Kenya - Masai Mara

2 hours ago
3 min read

The first time we went on safari, we (my husband and I) stayed in the same camp for the full week but for this trip we stayed at two camps. For the first 3 nights we were in Governors Il Moran camp, which is on the banks of the Mara river and has easy access to the reserve. It's a wonderful set up, with the restaurant and tents all overlooking the hippo filled river. As with a lot of camps in the area, it's unfenced so there is always a chance of wildlife appearing unexpectedly. This is especially common through the night when herds of elephants might move through or in our case, a hippo and her baby taking a nap beside our tent. Thankfully, there are guards on duty all the time so you never feel unsafe. The staff are truly excellent and can't do enough for you. They even cleaned our trainers, whic were quite muddy thanks to the rain we had during our stay.

The food is incredible across all the Governors Collection camps we've stayed at. I'm vegetarian and it's well catered for in the meals cooked fresh for you. They even took care not to add any fresh coriander to my food (I have that gene that makes it taste awful)

We were delighted to be reunited with our guide from 2025, Koros, who we got on incredibly well with. The reunion was so exciting that we forgot to get our hand luggage off the plane and didn't realise until we got to camp, oops! We got them back by the time we went on our first game drive that afternoon.

It goes without saying that the Masai Mara is an incredible place to go on safari. There's an abundance of wildlife with it being home to the big 5. We saw them all in 2025 but didn't see any leopards or rhino this year but that's the reality of safari, nothing is guaranteed.

The iconic Marsh Pride, which were heavily featured on Big Cat Diary ( a BBC documentary from the 90's) hold a territory close to camp and we had a couple of great encounters with them this year. Over the first couple of days we spent a lot of time with them, with them having killed a buffalo. We saw them with it after two days and it was not looking or smelling fresh by then. It was down to the bones and the lion cubs were keeping themselves entertained by playing with its tail.

Having watched countless documentaries, it does feel quite surreal to be driving through through the reserve and all of a sudden you're watching a herd of elephants and they're just there in front of you. It's quite hard to comprehend or describe. One of the benefits of doing a safari is the radio communication between guides. This means if something exciting is happening you're more likely to find out about it. Saying that, there can be problems with the number of vehicles around certain sightings and it is somewhat managed by the rangers. After one uncomfortable encounter with a leopard (in 2025) and how other guides were behaving we made our way out the area. My main priority when watching wildlife is the welfare of the animal and not causing any disturbance to them. Our guide was great and both of these images are from encounters where we were lucky enough to be the only vehicle there. It was a much more enjoyable experience.

There's up to 500 species of birds in the Masai Mara and I suspect we've barely scraped the surface of what we could see. These are some images from across our two visits.

Hippo's are notoriously territoral and fights can break out as quickly as they start. There was a baby in the area and this interloping hippo was swiftly shown it wasn't welcome. After watching them in the river outside our tent, I can categorically say they are pretty disgusting animals. I did find it entertaining to watch a common sandpiper taking advantage of the ever present flies around hippo's knowing I'd be seeing them around the coastline of Mull later in the year.

I need to cut this off at some point otherwise I'll still be writing in 2027! To finish off, these are some of the other shots I've managed over the last couple of years of the amazing animals in the Masai Mara. I'd followed the Governors camps on social media for years before finally taking the plunge to visit and I'm very glad we did, I'd highly recommend them if you're looking to safari in the area.