tanzania & uganda: gorillas, the migration and the reef

It is the big travelling day of the trip and it is built around flight days rather than distance.

The road out of the forest to the Kihihi airstrip runs to ninety minutes or two hours, and the scheduled light aircraft on to Entebbe takes a little over an hour direct, longer when it calls elsewhere on the way.

The crossing into Tanzania sets the date. Uganda's national carrier flies to Kilimanjaro three days a week, in about an hour and a quarter, and to Zanzibar every day.

The whole chain will not fit into one go, because the Entebbe departure lands in Tanzania after the last scheduled bush flight into Kogatende has left, so we build a night into the middle rather than run it fine. The camp is then a 20 minute drive from the airstrip.

A private charter flies the same sector on your own timing, usually a Cessna Caravan, and we price it beside the scheduled seats so you can see the difference.

In the crossing months the position is about as good as it gets, and still nobody can promise one.

From roughly July to October the wildebeest are massed in the far north, with the crossings at their heaviest in August and September, and the camp is the closest permanent one to the Mara River, 20 minutes from the airstrip that serves it.

Three or four nights is the stay we advise for a fair chance, and this route gives three. What no one arranges is the animal. A herd can stand on the bank all day and then walk away, or go in at a bend nobody is watching.

Outside those months the river is quiet and the northern plains hold resident lion, leopard, cheetah and elephant, along with a few black rhino that very few visitors ever see.

Very likely, though the Wildlife Authority promises nothing and neither do we.

Rangers know roughly where to head before you leave, because trackers pick each family up at first light from the nests it left at dawn. We put success here at better than 95 per cent.

Eight visitors go to a family each day, one hour is allowed once the gorillas are found, and the minimum age is 15.

The walking is the unknown. Bwindi lies between about 1,160 and 2,600 metres, the forest is steep and often slippery, and a trek can be over inside two hours or keep you out until late afternoon.

Walking sticks are handed out and porters can be hired from the villages. Treks here can start on the lodge's own private path into the forest.

Two visas, and one insurance policy people miss.

Uganda's visa is applied for online before travel, and the joint East Africa Tourist Visa, which allows multiple entries into Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, also covers the Ugandan half if you are adding one of the others.

Tanzania sits outside that scheme. The official advice to British passport holders is to hold a Tanzanian e-visa obtained online before leaving, with a single-entry visa also available at the main entry points.

Pemba is the one that catches people out. Every foreign visitor to the Zanzibar islands, Pemba included, must hold inbound travel insurance bought from the Zanzibar Insurance Corporation; no other policy is accepted, and the Foreign Office warns you may be refused entry without it.

Requirements turn on your passport, so we send the current ones when you book.

July to October, and this route makes the case unusually simple.

July, August and September carry our recommended rating at every stop: the crossings peak in August and September, the forest floor in Bwindi is at its firmest, and Pemba is in the calm, clear stretch of the cool monsoon, with the channel walls at their best in the same months. October holds up nearly as well.

February is the other month worth putting forward, strong in Bwindi, on the crater and in the sea, although the herds are then far to the south.

April and May are the ones to plan around, when the long rains fall on both countries, the diving is roughest and the Serengeti camp is closed. March and November are muddy in the forest.

The quieter months do bring easier permits, greener forest and softer light on dark fur.

No certificate is needed to start, and eight nights is only long if you stay out of the water.

The dive centre is a five star PADI operation running everything from a supervised first dive to rescue level, and the house reef opens on sand at five metres, shallow enough for beginners and for anyone who would rather snorkel.

What brings experienced divers is the channel, where the reef falls away in near-vertical walls; sites are graded by depth and current, some of them marked for advanced or deep-qualified divers only. Turtles, rays, Napoleon wrasse and schooling barracuda are regularly seen, and nothing in the sea is ever promised.

Send us your qualification and the date of your last dive when you enquire, so the centre can plan around it. The resort takes children from seven.