“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams”. Ashley Smith   In April Kenya received a huge amount of rain, and in some regions the flooding [...]

Mara Toto camp has a new resident – a Greater Galago (bush baby) is padding around between the tent lining and fly sheet above the dining table catching months. This is the first time that he has come onto the mess while there are lights on inside. His foot prints are making indentations on the [...]

While there’s no doubt that being alluded to as the Brangelina’s of the safari industry is quite a compliment, there’s much more substance to the work of Dereck & Beverly than appearances. Tiara Walters of South Africa’s Sunday Times weaves a story which we hope will “turn around a billion Chinese”. But it requires your [...]

A Visit to Ol Donyo Lodge (full text and images here) So I just came back from a week in Kenya. I initially planned the trip because of a friend’s wedding and because of a Fashion Designers without Borders trip that I planned with Chrissie Lam the Founder of The Supply Change. The trip was [...]

“When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?” William Blake In the three weeks it has been since our last report when we mentioned the wildlife moving south into this area, the herds have now [...]

SWEET-TOOTHED GIANTS   Elephant reaching up for marula fruit (Sclerocarya birrea) near oL Donyo Lodge, Kenya.

Yesterday morning, after just leaving  Mara Toto, guests immediately bumped into three of Notch’s boys as they licked their chops from finishing up a hippo killed a couple days earlier. These brothers have, since their time as a young coalition on the Masai Mara’s Paradise Plains become specialised in killing hippos. This is quite an [...]

On 22nd February, Ride Kenya assisted a vet from the David Sheldrick foundation in darting and treating an elephant with an arrow wound wandering near ol Donyo Lodge and the Ride Kenya stables.                   Ride Kenya managers Paddy and Kim were on hand to track the elephant and follow it [...]

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson One month into 2013 and so much has already happened here [...]

January has been a month full of fun activities at ol Donyo Lodge! Activities coordinator Scott Dyson and children’s program guide Elijah Morintat have been helping guests document their Chyulu Hills experience through art. Whether painting at the lodge or out on the plains, guests have been treated to dramatic  views of Mt Kilimanjaro and [...]

BREAKING NEWS….Mara Plains & Mara Toto status report from Richard and Lorna: We’ve done it. Mara Toto is now a fully functional seasonal camp running 100% on solar power, with no negative discharge into the environment (thanks to Biorock sewage treatment system), 5000 litres of rainwater catchment off the solar panel bank so far, all [...]

The most exciting thing happened last night when a couple of our guests along with Seki our head guide stumbled upon our well known local lion! It’s always a treat to get a sighting of a species which has been so heavily persecuted in this region. Small conservation steps matter. Today, all of the birds [...]

Our guests, the Timms party just returned from Kenya: “…out of all the accommodations not sure which was our favourite as all had something different but Ol Donyo Lodge was just amazing. The private plunge pools a real plus and everyday just sitting in our rooms looking down at the water hole watching the elephants [...]

“Look deep into Nature and then you will understand everything better” – Albert Einstein After having had one of the wettest Christmas and New Years any of us can remember, on the 3rd January, as we closed the camp for the full rebuild, the sun emerged and is shining brightly on our plans for the [...]

December at ol Donyo was certainly eventful! Ample late season rains continued to nourish green grasses for the plains game, making for lovely photo opportunities. Mt Kilimanjaro was also frequently visible, and made for a stunning backdrop to a variety of bush activities, gatherings, and celebrations. The Christmas spirit was certainly visible as well at [...]

All too often in the world of conservation, we are peppered with tragic stories. De-horned rhino here, speared lion there, but today we bring to you a conservation story which might just give you great hope for 2013 and beyond. Sure, you might say, “but it’s just a set of games, who cares, what’s that [...]

The finishing touches are all that remain to be completed for the grand opening of the NEW Mara Toto Camp, located just inside the Masai Mara Game Reserve, on the border with the private Mara North Conservancy. The 5-tent camp is Great Plains’ latest addition to its highly-regarded portfolio of camps in Kenya and Botswana. [...]

Christmas day at Mara Plains started with cars heading out for the morning drives to experience the unbeatable wildlife action. Guests followed Notch’s boys (four huge male lions) and watching the cheetah brothers hunting in the overcast light of dawn. As the morning moved on the cloud cleared into a beautiful day and the Mara Plains crew set up [...]

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly” – Richard Bach As some of you may already know this December (especially the second half) has been one of the most incredible months any of us can remember. After a brief reprieve from the early month rains that brought on [...]

First Maasai Olympics in Kenya creates new tradition: The track and field competition uses warriors’ lion hunting skills for athletics “The Maasai Olympics is not just a sporting activity and event. It is a once–in–a–lifetime opportunity given by the Maasai elders to save this ecosystem,” Dereck Joubert, CEO of Great Plains Conservation, said. In Kenya’s [...]

The strange weather continues this week with a very unusual blanket of thick fog descending on the plains at sunrise today. It didn’t last for long and already half an hour later the blazing morning sun is shining through, evaporating the dampness in plumes of steam and bouncing beams of light off every droplet of [...]

“To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told — that the world once lived [...]

November’s sometimes stormy skies have provided gorgeous backdrops for photography and the plains game have been plentiful. The forest areas at the base of the Chyulu Hills are fully green, and green is spreading across the plains and up the El Mau Hills. Wildlife has grown fat and happy in the midst of all the [...]

Lara Logan of CBS 60 Minutes profiles “The Last Lions” filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert on location at their Great Plains Conservation Camps in Botswana Scheduled to air Sunday November 25, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT Lara Logan and a team from CBS 60 Minutes profiled filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert at their Great Plains [...]

Today, CNN featured both Ride Kenya and Selinda Canoe Trail in its article titled “9 Ways to Travel Africa in Style”. We are honored to be part of this adventurous round-up of authentic African experiences which slough off the glitz & glam and get real in the bush. Come join us soon.

Great Plains Conservation is not simply a tourism venture. As our name suggests, we are actually primarily focused on conservation and use tourism as a vector to achieve our conservation goals. Hence we we call ourselves a “Conservation Tourism” company. To this end, Dereck & Beverly Joubert founded Big Cats Initiative in partnership with National [...]

From the W Family, USA who traveled in August 2012: “Ol Donyo Lodge – fabulous place! So luxurious after being in the dust and tents! Although the animal viewing is different to other parts of Kenya, the place more than makes up for it in the unusual activities that they offer. We had a great [...]

A recent influx of wildebeest and zebra has provided great opportunities for dramatic in-motion photographs. Stormy skies and the dominating bulk of Kilimanjaro have provided stunning backdrops and dramatic color, and the always lovely sunsets on the plains have made for some great silhouette shots. Wildlife becomes art in the Chyulu Hills!

Recent guests at ol Donyo Lodge were fortunate to witness an extraordinary cultural event:  Maasai warriors testing their sporting abilities. The Big Life Foundation has organized six regional track and field competitions to be held in coming weeks, all building toward the Maasai Olympics, a one-day sports celebration for the warriors of the entire ecosystem to [...]

October has brought scattered rains to ol Donyo Lodge, complete with dramatic skies and rolls of thunder. Predators following the plains game within the ecosystem have been spotted on recent game drives, and sightings of lion cubs have been of particular highlight. Here two adolescent cubs (male, left and female, right) survey the acacia-studded plains from [...]