Meru Edge Safari: Arusha National Park Adventure

Arusha National Park is one of the most under-rated parks in northern Tanzania. Compact - just 552 square kilometres - it is nevertheless one of the most ecologically diverse, packing rainforest, alkaline lakes, a shattered volcanic crater and the second-highest mountain in the country into a landscape you can circle in a single day. It is also the only park in the north where you are permitted to leave the vehicle for a walking safari, making it the perfect one-day introduction to the region.

The morning is a classic game drive. You enter the park at Ngongongare gate, wind up through the montane forest for black-and-white colobus and blue monkey, then drop down to the Momella Lakes. These seven alkaline lakes are fed by underground streams from Meru and host huge, seasonal flocks of lesser flamingo. The plains around them are one of the best places in Tanzania to see giraffe (Arusha has the densest population in the country), buffalo, warthog, waterbuck and bushbuck. On clear days Kilimanjaro rises 60 km to the east from every viewpoint.

Late morning you meet your armed ranger for the walking safari. You leave the vehicle and walk two to three hours along the lower slopes of Meru, following waterbuck trails through open glades and reading the small signs the vehicle drives past - fresh buffalo tracks, elephant dung, colobus feeding platforms, and the sun-warmed rocks where hyrax lie out. The walk finishes with a picnic lunch at a viewpoint over the Momella Lakes.

The afternoon is spent driving the northern crater rim of the Ngurdoto - the shattered mini-Ngorongoro filled with buffalo and warthog - and the Meru viewpoint before returning to Arusha by early evening.