A good day for NgoroNgoro as the sun was out and we climbed the difficult road to the crater rim there was a good view of the magnificent landscape. It's so big like the Grand Canyon it's hard to fully grok.

It was nearly a bad day for me - stepping out of the Toyota Landcruiser to take a picture I missed a step and bashed my left elbow onto the vehicle. Had I broken something? Was blood now adorning my Rohan shirt? I was afraid this might be the end of the safari. There wasn't any blood, and it just ached rather than agonised so I carried on.

On the way down into the main crater we passed Maasai villages and children walking long distances to school. The Maasai used to roam inside the crater itself (and also the Serengeti National Park) but the Tanzanian Government negotiated with their elders to leave the areas to the animals including tourists. We also passed on the way down a group of lounging lions including a young male rolling on its back like our cat Jasper will.

There are thousands of wildebeest and zebras and gazelles and water buffalo inside the crater, they move around almost in single file creating bare earth paths in the desiccated grass areas. Thompson gazelles have black stripes I learned. There was an Acacia (in Maasai Lerai) forest which had elephants trying to destroy it, apart from that the crater was dry scrubland with streams here and there. Oh and Lake Makat which is hypersaline - in the dry season round the lake are white salt deposits. Flamingoes patronise the lake, filtering away what's in the water, and jackals patronise the flamingoes. Hyenas also prowled around looking for weak animals.

We saw hippos bathing in their pool - there was pollution on the water caused apparently by hippos going to the bathroom in water they also lie in and drink! Egrets sat on the hippos and also defecated on hippos leaving white streaks on them but the hippos didn't mind.

We saw quite a few ostriches and also a rhino - at least I saw something dark through my monocular which might have been the rhino everyone else was seeing.

There were gangs of American and French going round in convoys. There was also Scott who had just joined Audley and was on an orientation trip. He was very enthusiastic about Audley which was nice to hear, I don't know I've ever been that enthusiastic about companies I've worked for. We chatted quite a while.

Gangs improving the road almost prevented us leaving, their yellow monster churned up the road into a ploughed field of hard lumps. The roads were very dusty, the crater was very dusty, dust devils danced away.

I stole some cookies as I felt I couldn't survive until 7:30 when Goodluck would be ready to eat (his work carries on even after he stops driving). I felt bad about that as I did about not tipping the guy who brought back my laundry before dinner. I did put $20 into the staff tip box when I left in the morning which I hoped served.