Join acclaimed elephant author and photographer Daryl Balfour (African Elephants – A Celebration of Majesty) on a safari taking in the very best elephant viewing areas in Kenya in February/March 2012 (dates to be finalised according to availability & preferences).

The safari, which will specifically be about elephants, photographing elephants, seeing elephants, tracking elephants and everything you ever wanted to know about elephants, visits three of the continent’s best areas for seeing and experiencing truly wild elephants. (Of course, we will see other wildlife on this safari too!) We will spend quality time with scientists active in the field of elephant research while optimising our opportunities to see and photograph elephants in the remote and scenic northern sector of Samburu National Reserve, the wild corners of Tsavo East National Park and the spectacular Amboseli National Park, where we will hope to encounter elephants on the open plains beneath the stunning backdrop of the snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro. The snows and glaciers of Kilimanjaro are disappearing at a rapid rate, so this is a scene that is unlikely to be around for many more years, but the timing of our safari in late February or early March offers a good chance of snow on the peaks…with countless elephants on the plains below!

If time allows we will also arrange a special visit to the elephant orphanage where Dame Daphne Sheldrick has done such remarkable work with baby elephants orphaned by poachers, and attempt to find some of the young elephants she has returned to the wild in Tsavo East.

Click here to read more about Elephants of East Africa

Join Daryl & Sharna Balfour at a unique tiger sanctuary in South Africa where you will have unheard of opportunities for seeing and photographing Asian tigers living in the wild. 

Tiger Canyons is not currently a “tourist destination” in the true sense of the word. There is no accommodation and little infrastructure. Rather it is a working experiment in saving tigers to which you are invited along with Daryl & Sharna Balfour on an informal safari where you will be virtually guaranteed tiger sightings and opportunities to photograph tigers unlike anywhere else on earth. The tigers roam free in spectacular Karoo landscapes with everything a tiger needs – dense reed beds, freshwater pools for bathing and swimming, stark rock outcrops that make stunning photo settings, and open grasslands where prey such as springbok, blesbuck, wildebeest, mountain reedbuck and steenbok graze…and tigers hunt!

Our tiger safaris are informal and simply structured. We stay in restored historical cottages in the nearby village of Philippoliswhere we can cater for ourselves or eat in the one and only dining option in town. However by prior arrangement we prefer to take our meals privately with John Varty at Tiger Canyons where you will be able to enjoy one-on-one chats about his visionary project, and about his passion for the big cats. All these safaris are customized according to your needs, and start either from Johannesburg or Bloemfontein, though private charter flights can land in Philippolis, weather permitting.

We offer safaris to Tiger Canyons in close co-operation with John Varty and make sure that he will be on site to entertain and educate our guests about his goals and ambitions in tiger conservation. There is some fossil evidence that tigers in fact could once have roamed Africa…and it is indisputable that lions, leopards and cheetah lived alongside tigers in Asia. Sadly the Asian lions are almost extinct, and cheetah have recently been reintroduced after becoming extinct there in recent years. Our safaris can be tailored to suit your needs and aspirations and are usually best done as an add-on to another southern African safari. We can specifically recommend a combined Big Cats safari utilizing Londolozi Game Reserve, world famous for its superb leopard viewing and great lion sightings. Guests can quite conceivably be photographing lions and leopards in the morning and be sitting with tigers that afternoon!

Click here to read more about Tigers of Africa

Daryl & Sharna Balfour invite you to join them in a new departure in Kenya’s acclaimed Maasai Mara National Reserve. Although we have run special wildebeest migration safaris in August and September each year for the past decade we have had consistently good game viewing in the Mara at other times of the year as well. In fact we have on occasion felt that without the distractions of the migrating herds of wildebeest and the pressure we all feel to locate river crossings each day, the Mara can be at its best outside of the migration period. To this end we have scheduled two new safaris in the Mara during March 2012 (One already sold out!) We will set up our exclusive private tented camp, accommodating a maximum of 12 guests.  Acclaimed South African wildlife photographers and authors Daryl & Sharna Balfour will be on hand to offer insights into taking better photos of your safari-in-a-lifetime, while our resident naturalist guides, Pierre Burton and Phil West are among the best in East Africa and will ensure that your safari is both memorable and informative. The Mara is undoubtedly one of the best places in Africa to see and photograph the big cats – lion, leopard and cheetah – and we will spend much of our days tracking and photographing them.                        

Our exclusive “mobile” private tented camp offering top quality catering from our four experienced and qualified safari chefs, with seven tents accommodating a maximum of 12 guests, will be erected solely for the use of these safaris, at a secluded and private location in one of the best game viewing areas of the Maasai Mara. The camp will feature spacious walk-in safari tents with a choice of large queen-sized beds or comfy twins, each with private en-suite ablution facilities featuring a fully enclosed dressing room with washbasin and clothing racks, private HOT bucket showers in a fully enclosed attached cubicle and a flush toilet for each tent, while meals will be taken under the stars or in a large, airy mess tent at truly spectacular linen-covered candle-lit tables set with fine china and stemware.

We have endeavored to recreate the atmosphere of the original mobile hunting camps of the past with our camp, and this is the way Ernest Hemingway, Teddy Roosevelt, Sir Randolph Churchill and Robert Ruark experienced and wrote about Africa, (with many more modern luxury trimmings, of course) and it is the best way to avoid the over-crowded mass-market tourism of the bigger commercial lodges and safari hotels. We place a premium on the wildlife experience too, with our guides being among the best in the industry not only in finding and locating the game, but also sharing their knowledge about the country, its people and its wildlife. Our guides are all thoroughly experienced at ensuring you will have the best position and angle to optimize your photography and will offer advice any assistance whenever required.

Your eventful and full days will be spent exploring this, the northernmost limits of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, seeking the area’s abundant wildlife – which at this time of the year should include the big cats for which the Mara is rightly famous as well as many other of the usual plains game species along with elephants, giraffe and Cape buffalo. Our guides will do their utmost to ensure you an experience of a lifetime.

Click here to read more about Big Cats of the Maasai Mara