SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK

A bucket list destination for all who seek adventure, Tanzania's oldest and most popular national park is famed for its annual migration, when some six million hooves cross the open plains. A million wildebeest travel 600 miles across the Serengeti, through crocodile-infested waters, on their annual exodus north to replenish their species. A brief population explosion that produces more than 8,000 calves daily. Alongside them are over 200,000 zebra, 300,000 Thomson's gazelle, along with their hungry predators, lions, creeping stealthily behind.

Even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers perhaps the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle. The spectacle of predator versus prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-maned lion prides feast on the abundance of plain grazers. Solitary leopards haunt the acacia trees lining the Seronera River, and a high density of cheetah prowl the southeastern plains. Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species reside here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host of more elusive small predators, from the insectivorous aardwolf to the beautiful serval cat.

There is more to Serengeti than large mammals. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes scuffle on the surfaces of the park’s isolated granite kopjes. A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, from the outsized ostrich, to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above. As invigorating as the game-viewing is, the liberating sense of space that characterises the Serengeti Plains, as sunburnt savannah gives way to a shimmering golden horizon. Surely the edge of the Earth. After the rains, the golden expanse is transformed into an endless green carpet, flecked with wildflowers. There are also wooded hills, towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust.

Despite its popularity, the Serengeti remains so vast there is still seclusion to be found. In fact, you may find it’s just you and your guide watching the lion eye up his next supper.