Sunrise over Lake Victoria in Tanzania

Sleeping in a tent is one of those things you either love or hate and I fall into the former.

My justification to the haters of camping for spending the night on a hard floor, with no electric and a limited food supply, is the reward of a seeing billions of stars and the dramatic colours of a sunset and a sunrise.

With this in mind, my husband and I recently took our three children on their first camping experience to the banks of Lake Victoria, to a place called Papa’s near Mwanza in Tanzania.

Our tent was pitched yards from the shore of this huge lake, which with a surface area of 26,600 square miles is Africa’s largest lake and the world’s second largest freshwater lake.

As you would imagine, I did not get a lot of sleep. I had told the children how amazing the stars would be and had also promised that we would watch the sun come up together. Lottie, Leon and Frida were so excited and as soon as they saw the of zillions of stars above us, including a couple of shooting stars, they could not close their eyes until they were ready to drop. But despite their late night, they were up before the crack of dawn and ready for their first sunrise, and they weren’t disappointed.

We were rewarded with this…

Sunrise over Lake Victoria

We all sat in ore as the sky turned from black to midnight blue to indigo to the most stunning shades of orange and red and the sound of quiet was almost deafening.

As the light became brighter and the sun rose up over the lake, it was like the volume was being gradually turned up and the sounds of the day started; the bird calls of the egrets fused together with the sound of fishermen singing while they looked for Nile Perch and Tilapia.

This is my photograph of that magical moment.