Wildlife on the Roof of Africa

Take an overnight flight to Addis Ababa.

On arrival in Addis Ababa you will be met and transferred to the comfortable Golden Tulip Hotel to overnight with breakfast. In the afternoon your professional guide and driver will take you on a sightseeing tour which includes Mt Entoto Park, from where you can take in panoramic views over the city..

Take the early morning flight to Gondar, the access town to the Simien Mountains. Your guide and driver travel with you to Debarak where your park permits are issued. Check in at Simien Lodge for a 2 night stay, all meals included. Visit beautiful Sankaber for an introduction to the sub-Afroalpine habitat here. You should see many of the iconic Gelada monkeys here, as well as around the lodge.

Drive deep into the Simien Mountains to Chennek, where in the Afro-alpine habitat you should see endangered Walia ibexes with many Geladas. Keep an eye open for raptors, too. The scenery here is some of Africa's most dramatic.

Return to Gondar (2 hours drive) and go for a stroll around the Imperial Compound with its unexpected 17th century castles. In the grounds, some endemic birds such as White-billed starling and White-collared pigeon are quite common. Overnight in the hill-top Goha Hotel, where, while sipping sundowners on the terrace, you can keep an eye open for raptors such as Lammergeier, as well as endemic Thick-billed ravens.

Take a quick flight to Addis Ababa, from where you travel in a comfortable 4WD vehicle for 4 hours to relaxed Lake Langano. Overnight in a lakeside chalet at Hara Langano, where you may see hippos, crocs and an incredible variety of birds. All meals included.

Continue south in your air-conditioned 4WD vehicle to Dinsho, the Bale Mountains NP office where you collect your park permits. A short stroll into the surrounding Juniper and Hagenia woods here, should easily produce endemic Mountain nyala, Meneliks bushbuck and possibly other mammals such as Oribi and Serval. Continue up to the Sanetti Plateau and cross it along Africa's highest-lying road. Wind down the escarpment into the verdant and vast Harenna Forest, where you are based for three nights in Bale Mountains Lodge, all meals included.

One of the highlights of your trip is today's excursion to Sanetti Plateau, the Roof of Africa. In a frail ecosystem where Giant lobelias preside like sentinels over the Afro-alpine moorlands, you'll look for the world's rarest canid, the Ethiopian wolf. You may see them stalking their prey which includes the comical Big-headed (giant) mole-rat. There is a busy and thriving endemic rodent community in these moorlands. Birders can seek endemic Blue-winged goose, Spot-breasted lapwing and Rouget's rail among others.

From Bale Mountains Lodge, venture out with your guide and driver to take on one of the walking trails into the forest in search of wildlife such as the rare and localised Bale monkey. With luck you may also see forest-dwelling lions; Menelik's bushbuck and perhaps Giant forest hog. Look for birds such as White-cheeked turacou and the Abysinnian catbird, one of Africa's finest songsters.

Drive back over the Sanetti Plateau - another chance to seek wolves - and past Dinsho (where again you can see Mountain nyala and plenty of Warthog) northwards to Lake Langano to overnight in Hara Langano, all meals included.

Drive back up to Addis Ababa with optional stops at the Tiya Stelae Park for its obelisks and Melka Kunture Archaelogical Site. You will have day room use in Golden Tulip (or overnight, depending upon the time of your international flight out)

Fly back to London Heathrow, where you arrive in the early morning.