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Honeymoon HoneyPotKate O’Grady can’t quite decide whether she’s more taken by exotic Zanzibar or her adorable husband

the honeymoon. It happens once (you hope). The holiday to beat all others. Naturally, I left my fiancé, Charlie, to take the honeymoon helm. he was sailing solo.

And it wasn’t until we arrived at heathrow that the itinerary of a Kenyan safari and Zanzibar was revealed. What a man. What a husband!

Sipping champagne on the deck of our tent at Ol Seki, transfixed by a giraffe gliding across the waves of red, green and ochre plain below, the months of nagging Charlie about booking vaccinations and checking luggage were almost forgotten.

A note to grooms-to-be: a weight allowance and ‘beach clothes plus a cover-up’ is not sufficient packing guidance for even the

travelmail

Exotic: A glorious Zanzibar beach and, inset, newlyweds Kate and Charliemost low-maintenance fiancée. Nor, as it turned out, was it accurate for a safari. The savan-nah gets cold. But despite being dressed in almost every item in my 15kg bag the next morning, I still couldn’t do anything but grin. It was all too perfect.

Ol Seki is a beautiful ten-tent camp on the 200 sq km Naboisho Conservancy, bordering the Masai Mara National Park.

Land is rented from the local Masai, creating a partnership between traditions and tourism. Ol Seki is fully involved in local life — from dispatching the tractor to help nearby villages to supporting the Koiyaki Guiding School, which trains Masai and counted our guide Raphael among its alumni.

ouR first game drive was stupendous. My heart thudded as a male lion strutted a metre from us. It was quiet, save for the

click of my camera as an elephant padded silently, with a grace unbefitting his size.

And we were so absorbed watching the red sun rise over the hills and spill its fiery morning light across the plains that the camera didn’t even get a look in.

We were there for the great migration, voted by uSA Today as one of the New Seven Wonders Of The World. Around July and August,

conveniently timed for summer honeymoons, 1.5 million wildebeest, 350,000 Thomson’s gazelles and 200,000 zebras cross the Mara River from the Serengeti into Kenya. It’s rush hour on the savannah.

Our final evening’s drive (night drives are banned in the Mara and you have to keep to the tracks) finished with a surprise dinner on a rocky promontory in the m i d d l e o f t h e wilderness.

Camp fire at our feet, gin to our l i p s a n d a blanket of stars over our heads, we were sold on safaris.

Then we left Ol Seki and headed t o i t s e q u a l l y attractive sister hotel in Nairobi . Opened last year, hem-ingways Nairobi offers the perfect rest after bone-rattling dawn drives. You can even check in for just the afternoon between flights to stretch your legs on the manicured lawns, take a massage or do laps of the pool.

Rested and ready for our next adventure, we caught a flight from Nairobi to Zanzibar. This exotic island has been attracting visitors for centuries. Arab merchants,

european explorers and Indian tradesmen were brought by monsoon winds, seduced by spices, bazaars, or, shamefully, the slave trade. This painful memory is addressed at the Anglican Cathedral in Stone Town. Built on the site of the old slave market,

the altar poignantly stands where once was the

whipping post.An hour’s drive from Stone Town,

on the east coast is the six-villa Palms hote l , p a r t o f the Zanzibar Collection. everything is beautiful, from the hand-carved

woodwork and culinary master-

pieces leaving the k i tchen, to the

sta f f ’ s welcoming smiles and views across

the Indian Ocean, which changes colour with every sip of your sundowner.

even we — cynics of anything involving hearts and rose petals — couldn’t help being swept up by how romantic the resort is. By the end of the first day we were strolling on the beach hand in hand, drunk on the cornflour soft sand and electric sea.

We were helped by the charming manager Siriak. he took joy in finding every opportunity to surprise us, from surreptitiously running a candle-lit bath to secretly setting up our lunch under a palm canopy on the beach.

honeymoon cliche we may have

b e c o m e , b u t deserted beaches these are not. This island paradise comes with a backbone and life zinging through the sand.

Our beach lunch w a s h a p p i l y d i s t u r b e d b y migrating cattle and f i shermen cycling past. At low tide, we walked out to the reef, passing locals searching the bath-warm water for sea snails.

Further down the beach is the village of Bwejuu, where the hotel group has built a maternity clinic and a mosque for the locals.

The sand here is covered with half-buried tyres. Not litter, but each one marking where a coconut has been buried to soften and make into rope.

FAMILY-RuN, the Zanzibar Collection has three, soon to be four, exquisite proper-ties along the same stretch of coast.

The location was chosen by the owner’s father, based on an old British map showing a well. It was never found, but this didn’t stop the family from forging ahead.

Its other hotels, Breezes and Baraza, sit next door to Palms, and each reflects a different part of Zanzibar’s history. Palms is inspired by the Swahili heritage; Breezes has a european feel; while the 30-villa Baraza, with its huge pool and serene courtyards, nods to the

Arabian past. Palms guests can enjoy the sister hotels, too. Breezes has a diving school and offers private dinners fit for sultans.

When we decided to prepare our-selves for the return to a life less horizontal, we joined a snorkelling safari and worked off lunch at Baraza’s tennis courts.

Charlie had done good, seriously good. I’m normally in charge of travel arrangements, but on our return I made a decision. I gave him the travel trousers — for him to have and to hold, from this day forward, till death us do part.

TRAVEL FACTSTurquoise Holidays (01494 678 400, turquoiseholidays.co.uk) offers two weeks in Africa from £3,475pp. The trip includes three nights on safari, all-inclusive at ol seki Hemingways Mara Camp in the Masai Mara, followed by a night’s B&B at Hemingways Nairobi and an all-inclusive week on Zanzibar (thezanzibarcollection.com). Price includes Kenya Airways flights from Heathrow, transfers and domestic flights with safarilink.

Deals of the week...Christmas CruiseDRIFT along the Rhine from Basel to Amster-dam on the five-star

AmaCerto. Enjoy gourmet dinners, fine wines, and excursions includ-ing to Alsace, the Black Forest, and the Rhine Gorge.

Departing December 22, you’ll wake up in twinkling Strasbourg on Christmas Eve, with a trip to Speyer or Heidelberg on Christ-mas Day. From £1,995 per person with Planet Rail (01347 811810, planetrail.co.uk) based on two sharing an outside stateroom, including seven nights’ all-

inclusive accommodation, first-class rail from London to Basel and Amsterdam to London, plus private transfers.

deCember sun A WEEK at the adult-only, five-star Barcelo Bavaro Beach Resort in

the Dominican Republic (left) is now just £959pp with The Holiday Place (020 7644 1770, holidayplace.co.uk). The resort sits on white sands, with water sports, mountain safaris and helicopter tours all on offer. Price includes seven nights in a double superior room all-inclusive, including return flights from Gat-wick. Departs December 9, 2014.

Daily Mail, saturday, November 8, 2014

SAVe£500 pp SAVe

£300 pp

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Zanzibar is home to the almost-extinct red

Columbus monkey, the Zanzibar servaline genet

and the Zanzibar leopard, which is

believed to be kept by witches

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