With low vehicle densities, a booming big cat population and wildlife encounters to beat any TV documentary, Masai Mara’s conservancies are the top choice for African safari, says Sarah Marshall...

Burning like two laser beams through the branches of an Acacia tree, the leopard’s gaze fixes on a point far in the distance. We’ve been waiting almost two hours for the sluggish cat to make a move, and now our patience is finally paying off.

Leaping from the tree, she heads towards the thorny scrubland. Her glassy green eyes are fixed on a troop of baby warthogs following their mother to a den. Alert, and with every well-oiled muscle fired into action, the killing machine makes chase – and we follow suit. It takes less than two minutes for the opportunistic predator to snare a pair of piglets.

Sighting a leopard is difficult, seeing a kill is rare, and being the only vehicle present to witness the event is almost impossible. But it’s episodes such as this that make Kenya’s Masai Mara conservancies arguably the best place in the world for a big cat safari.

Mara North, where I begin my stay at the nature-embracing Elephant Pepper Camp, is one of the largest conservancies, with 12 camps spread across 90,000 hectares, and conservancy fees, paid by every visitor as part of their bed stay, shared between a management body and 800 landowners.

But the benefits are twofold; while the Masai people profit from a growth in tourism, guests also enjoy excellent wildlife viewing. The number of camps in each conservancy is restricted and no day-trippers are permitted, meaning vehicle density is exceptionally low.

But despite negative reports of packed, camo-clad mini buses distressing wildlife, the National Reserve is still teeming with game, and is also the only place to watch the Mara River’s famous migration crossings.

The Mara Plains Camp, which straddles the Mara North and Olare Motorogi conservancies, offers guests a day pass to the Reserve as part of their stay.

It’s undoubtedly the most lavish camp in the Mara, but the greatest luxury afforded guests is the flexibility of game drives.

We set out at 5.15am one morning, to find a leopard nursing her cub. Unlike the solitary and powerful predator we’d spotted days earlier, this is an altogether different creature; gentle, caressing and playful. We spend an hour, alone, watching the two-month-old cub nuzzling, pawing and even biting its mother for affection.

With a packed breakfast and lunch in the vehicle, there’s no need to return to the lodge, so we maximize our time on the action-packed plains.

A spotted hyena rips into the belly of a fallen wildebeest, while a few kilometers away, Martial eagles hunt surprisingly resilient mongooses that fight back with ill-judged bravado.

Long after dark, we listen to lions hunt a herd of wildebeest as the ungainly creatures break into a stampede. Finally, we return to camp 15 hours after we first left.

In Africa, overall, the lion population is declining, but in the Mara – and particularly the Naboisho conservancy – numbers are booming.

Meaning ‘coming together’ in Maasai, Naboisho is the youngest conservancy and also home to the Koiyaki Guiding School, where our Maasai guides, Bernard and Johnson, both trained.

Having worked with a number of professional photographers, guides at Kicheche know all the best spots in the Mara, and with split-second expertise can manoeuvre vehicles into the best viewing positions.

Bernard and Johnson demonstrate these skills when we head out before dawn to photograph one of the Mara’s blood orange sunrises. We quickly find our subject, a stately male prowling through the whistling thorns, scattering nervous impala like pins in a bowling alley.

It’s the first of many lion sightings, with later encounters involving an aggressive display of semi-consensual courtship, and a nursery of squat, sausage-legged cubs from as young as three weeks old.

But an abundance of lions isn’t good news for everyone. We go in search of Nabiki, a four-year-old cheetah who recently gave birth to four cubs. With so many predatory big cats around though, it’s unlikely they’ll all survive. Having hidden her young in the thickets, we find Nabiki hunting for prey, but with little energy left in her gaunt, frail body, any attempts are quickly aborted.

The cheetah’s vulnerability becomes acutely apparent when we accidentally stumble into a ‘scaredy cat’ on foot, sending it shooting off.

In the reserve, guests can only disembark vehicles when accompanied by a park ranger, but at Asilia Africa’s Naboisho Camp, fly camping and walking safaris are both possible, under the guidance of highly experienced camp manager Roelof.

With a mobile kitchen, fluffy duvets and even a fire-heated shower beneath the stars, fly camping is a much more glamorous affair than simply pitching a tent in the bush.

Having been cooped up in a vehicle for several days, I enjoy the freedom of stretching my legs and taking time to appreciate the Mara’s smaller details.

The connection with wildlife is also completely different.That night, we sit around a campfire, listening to hippos lolloping in the river. That silence and seclusion is precious, and testimony to the success of the conservancies.

Their future though, is precarious. Ebola and terrorism fears have led to a drop in bookings. Persuading Maasai to swap grazing land for wildlife will only work if the project is financially successful, so tourism is a vital link in the chain.

In this week, I’ve seen, heard and sensed more than in every safari I’ve been on combined.

If bookings do remain static, I fear it’s not just the Maasai who'll be missing out.

• Sarah Marshall was a guest of the Kenya Tourism Board. Visit www.magical kenya.com

• Lodges: Asilia Naboisho Camp (www.asiliaafrica.com) from 715 US dollars pppn, including fly camping; Kicheche Valley Camp (www.kicheche.com) from 625 US dollars pppn; Mara Plains Camp (greatplainscon servation.com) from 850 US dollars pppn; Elephant Pepper Camp (www.chelipeaco ck.com) from 640 US dollars pppn. All rates are full board and include conservancy fees.

• Kenya Airways (kenya-air ways.com) operates daily overnight flights from London Heathrow to Nairobi, from £732.41.

• Safarilink (flysafarilink.com) offers daily scheduled flights from Nairobi to all the major game parks in Kenya.