Lake Manyara Night Game Drive
Add another dimension to your daily game drives and enter the world of Africa’s nocturnal predators on a thrilling night drive. Night drives at Lake Manyara National Part are particularly spectacular, with the moon reflecting off the lake. After an early dinner, leave the lodge at about 20h00 and explore the park for approximately three hours. Your expert guide will take you through the park’s diverse habitats in search of nocturnal animals and sounds, giving you a completely different perspective of the lake and the Rift Valley Escarpment.
The wild animals in this park are in top notch condition, due to the dependable water supply year round. There is an abundance of elusive animals that are rarely seen in the day, but that are incredibly active at night. Keep your eyes open, and hopefully you will be lucky enough to spot shy genets, lithe civet cats and prickly porcupines. Possibly easier to see will be the massive hippos happily foraging under a leafy tree on the road side. Fleeting leopards often wander around the park and, even though it is not a given that you will see one, there are regular sightings of them. The kings of the jungle, the golden lions, pride themselves on sleeping all day so fortunately, you are sure to seen them as they are most mobile at night.
Lake Manyara ecosytem
Lake Manyara is the ideal location for a night game drive because of its many ecosystems. It is said to have 11 different systems; the area is a melting pot for all types of animals and plants - with the lake, the rift valley cliffs, ground water forest, Ngorongoro highlands and the dry Tarangire system all close by.
Lake Manyara wildlife
Manyara National Park have good reliable water year round and animals here are in prime condition making wildlife viewing even better. The less seen animals are generally active at night and Lake Manyara National Park are full of them! Porcupines, genets and civet cats are frequent visitors to the forest. Hippos are nocturnal animals (active by night) and it is highly likely to see many of these beasts grazing on the side of the road. Lake Manyara is well known for a large number of Leopards and although it is not a common occurrence these elusive cats are spotted on a regular basis. Lion sightings are more common and where lions are mostly sleeping in day time at night they are almost always active.
Night game drive programme
Your drive starts around 20:00 from where you head into the thick ground-water forest of Lake Manyara. From the forest you head down towards the lake following the Simba River to the hippo pools. You will return back to the forest and finally be back at the park gate around 22:30. We can either leave you at the gate to be collected by your safari driver or we can take you to the Serena Manyara Lodge for collection.
This night safari will give you an entirely different perspective of the park and wildlife.