A short guide about Family travel to Ngorongoro Crater
This is one of the finest places in Tanzania for watching game. The Ngorongoro Crater is thought to have formed about 2.5 million years ago from a large volcano whose cone collapsed inward after a major eruption, leaving the present vast, unbroken caldera as its landmark. (So in fact, it's not really a crater it's a caldera, a collapsed volcano). This crater has a diameter of 19 km; and it is about 600 m deep. The bottom is flat, almost treeless and filled with some small creeks and lakes.
The area is a pristine wildlife reserve filled with game such as Gazelles, zebra's, elephants, hyena's, buffalo's, hippos, lions and many birds including ostriches. Only the giraffe is not present. The steep pathway down into the crater forbids this tall legged animal to descend. Access to the area is only permitted during the day and camping in the crater is forbidden. Everybody must leave the crater floor at 6 pm and travelers often return to their accommodation perched high on the crater walls by late afternoon, providing a dramatic panorama of the crater and plains below whilst the sun sets.
Tourabout has a variety of safari tours to the Ngorongoro Crater, home to around 30,000 animals with a high concentration of predators. These tours descend the steep escarpment onto the crater floor for a half day of game viewing and provide you with an assigned private picnic site on the far side of the hippo pool, set in the shade of the yellow acacia woodlands.