Oliver's is a classic safari camp, reminiscent of early-day, East African adventures, located in a remote site along the Tarangire River.

Oliver's Camp is the furthest south of the safari accommodations in Tarangire, giving guests an opportunity to explore the wildlife-rich swamps located in the central and southern portions of the national park.

The camp's site along the Tarangire River, which is the life-source for the park's wildlife, means that wildlife viewing can often occur from the veranda of one's deck or while enjoying a midday swim in the pool.

Activities at Oliver's focus on game drives, both daytime and after dark, as well as some of the best walking safaris in Africa. Full-day game drives with a packed picnic lunch allow access to almost any section of the park. Other activities include hot-air ballooning and an evening spent with the Tarangire-Manyara Lion Research Team.

The camp offers 15 tented guest suites divided into two separate, but connected (by radio walkway) satellite camps, one with 10 suites (Oliver's Main Camp) and the other with 5 suites (Little Oliver's). The smaller camp is ideal for a group traveling together.

Two of the guest suites in the main camp have two bedrooms and are designed for families. Children aged 5 years and above are welcome.

The main guest areas at both camps include a guest lounge with a bar, a dining room, and a campfire area. There is a swimming pool located between the two camps and overlooking the Tarangire River.

Tarangire is an oft-overlooked destination for safaris in northern Tanzania, but its deserves consideration, particularly during the dry, winter months between July and October, when Tarangire is absolutely pumping with wildlife, especially elephants.

About Tarangire

Tarangire is comprised of the Tarangire National Park and the adjoining Tarangire Conservation Area (TCA), which together occupy nearly 1 250 square miles (3 250 sq kms) of wilderness in Africa's Rift Valley. Tarangire is part of Tanzania's northern safari circuit, which also includes the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Lake Manyara regions.

Tarangire's core protected area is based around the Tarangire River, which flows north through the 1 010-square-mile (2 616-sq-km) Tarangire National Park before emptying into Lake Burunge, which lies just west of the northern section of the park. An additional 226 square miles (585 sq kms) is protected as the Tarangire Conservation Area (TCA). To the east are the Maasai Steppes, covering roughly 1 900 square miles (5 000 sq kms) of unprotected, but mostly uninhabited land.

The Tarangire region is drier than the Serengeti, with dense Acacia scrubland and woodlands, especially in the north and along the rivers. Tarangire's baobab trees are a notable feature in the northern area of the national park and TCA. Seasonal swamps dominate the southern half of the national park.

Tarangire National Park

Tarangire National Park was established in 1970 to protect the diversity of wildlife, birds, and habitats along the perennial Tarangire River. The northern portion of the park is the most developed and offers year-round safaris. The bend of the Tarangire River and its east-west portion is particularly good for wildlife.

The northern section is dominated by hilly grasslands, Acacia woodlands, patches of riparian woodland along the Tarangire River, and numerous baobab trees. The road network in the north is well established, with tracks running on either side of the Tarangire River.

Moving south, the park gradually becomes defined by seasonal marshes, which are a haven for birds. Most of the roads in this central portion of the park are passible all year, though some become difficult during the rainy season. The far south of the park is extremely remote and is only reachable during the dry season, but even then, it is seldom explored.

The Tarangire River, which flows north through the entirety of the national park, is the life source for the entire region. Even during the peak of the dry season (August-October), when most of the region has little to no water, the mostly dry Tarangire riverbed still supports life-sustaining pools of water.

Wildlife from across the region congregate at the Tarangire River for its water, including large numbers of elephant, wildebeest, and zebra. The animals spend the dry months close to the river, providing excellent game viewing. Once the short rains begin in November, the animals disperse into the surrounding areas.

Tarangire's swamps are located in the central and southern reaches of the park and offer some of the country's richest breeding grounds for birds during the rainy season (between November and May). During the dry season (June-October), the swamps recede, but the remaining marshland offers superb game viewing, especially for buffalo, lion, and elephant.

TARANGIRE CONSERVATION AREA (TCA)

Bordering Tarangire National Park in the northeast is the Tarangire Conservation Area (TCA). The TCA was established in the late 1990s as Tanzania's first community-managed wildlife area.

The TCA is comprised of multiple Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) that are owned and managed by separate groups of Maasai communities. Some of the WMAs offer eco-tourism as a source of revenue for their land, while others are used for cattle grazing or mixed-use purposes.

The Tarangire River's primary watershed is found in the TCA and these seasonal "sand" rivers, provide pools of water during the dry season for an abundance of wildlife. Game viewing in the TCA can even surpass that in the national park.

The TCA is not subject to national park regulations, so night drives and walking safaris are an option at the safari camps located here.

WILDLIFE & MIGRATION

Tarangire is home to a little-known wildlife migration, which is much smaller than the great Serengeti-Masai Mara migration. The annual migration at Tarangire consists of some 25 000 wildebeest, 30 000 Burchell's zebra, 2 500 elephant, and modest numbers of fringe-eared oryx. The concentration of mammals in Tarangire during the dry season months (July-October) is second only to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.

The migrating animals begin to arrive to the Tarangire region at the onset of the dry season (usually in late July) to take advantage of the remaining water and waterholes along the Tarangire River bed and its watershed tributaries. The migrating wildlife remain in Tarangire until the rains arrive, usually sometime in November. When the short rains in November begin in earnest, the zebras and wildebeests depart Tarangire, heading north to Lake Manyara or east into the Maasai Steppes.

By the time the long rains arrive in April/May, the migrating animals are spread out over a huge area roughly ten times the size of Tarangire National Park. Some elephants migrate all the way into Kilimanjaro and Amboseli National Park. When the long rains are over and the plains begin to dry up (usually between mid-May and early June), the animals start to head again towards Tarangire, where by August, they have arrived in huge numbers again.

Many of Tarangire's animals are year-round residents, including lion, leopard, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, eland, waterbuck, bushbuck, Thomson's gazelle, Coke's hartebeest, impala, warthog, hippo, black-backed jackal, ostrich, olive baboon, vervet monkey, and significant numbers of elephant. Cheetah are seen in Tarangire on occasion but are uncommon, as are spotted hyenas. Less common mammals include the odd-looking gerenuk antelope, with its extra long neck, lesser kudu, and striped hyena.

Birding in Tarangire is superb, with over 500 species recorded. The Tarangire River and the swamps are especially productive birding areas. West of the park's boundary is Lake Burunge, which attracts a variety of waterbirds all year and large numbers of flamingos during the dry season.