My Favourite Holiday: Halla Mohieddeen on a wild and lazy time with the big beasts of Kenya

HALLA Mohieddeen joined STV 10 months ago after several years working in Paris.

She now presents STV News Tonight on STV2 each weeknight at 7pm, with its mix of Scottish, national and international news.

Halla, 38, lives in Glasgow with her Italian-born husband Tommaso.

WHEN Tommaso and I got married in 2016, we wanted to go to Kenya for our honeymoon but we couldn’t get enough time off together.

It ended up as just a long weekend away. So, when we were able to get a decent break this year we decided to have a second honeymoon and go on safari.

It was a four-day safari to different national parks, such as Tsavo East, and it really was the experience of a lifetime.

We felt like we were in our very own David Attenborough nature documentary, in the flesh rather than on TV.

There were six of us in this wee bus rattling along on these bumpy, dusty roads – our driver joked that we were getting an African massage.

But the sights were out of this world and we all said we’d never go to a zoo again having seen these animals in their natural environment.

At one stage we drove down to a lake and there were water buffalos thundering down the hill, herds of zebras and giraffes, a couple of elephants and a pride of lions lying there in the sun.

It was an incredible thing and such a privilege to be there.

Our driver got a call tipping him off about a possible sighting of a cheetah. It was quite far away and only a 50/50 chance of it still being there, but he wanted us to experience it and raced off.

We were really barrelling along and, luckily, we did manage to see it.

It was quite unperturbed but when it settled and put its head down, it disappeared into the grass, so good was its camouflage. It brought it home how hard it could be to see these wonderful animals.

We stayed in a lodge on stilts one night, right by a watering hole used by elephants.

And another night we were in tents like we’d never seen in our lives.

It was fitted out with everything, a proper bathroom, built-in wardrobes, the lot.

We were so relieved as we’re really not camping types!