Sunday 13 October
Up 5.40am, cold shower, packed, checked out of hotel by 6am! Hotel packed us all a breakfast bag of pancake, bread, sausage, chicken wings, boiled eggs, juice and a coffee. Lovely. Got to Nakuru Safari Park 6.30am, just as it opened. The park was opened in 1961, primarily to protect rhino. It now holds over 100 black and white rhino, so is a success in that respect. It has 4 of the big 5 game – lions, leopard, rhino and cape buffalo. No elephants, as they need more space to roam. It covers an area of 188km2, although 58km2 of this is Lake Nakuru itself. The Lake is getting bigger – increased rainfall from climate change has meant more water drains in to it from the Rift Valley. This has changed to composition of the water to be less alkaline. Lake Nakuru was once famous for its flocks of pink flamingos, but their numbers have dropped dramatically with the change in water affecting the growth of the algae that form their staple diet. The water level has risen such that there is about 10m depth of withered acacia trees along the waters edge, where they have been suffocated by the rising waters. On the plus side, these dead branches provide roosting and resting spaces for pelicans, sea eagles, Mario I stork etc, so every cloud and all that!
The first game we saw were impala ( small deer). This was near the entrance to the park, so it was a view of game, with the buildings of the city in the background! Bit like my humpback whale in front of the skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise, but that’s a different blog!
Then we saw 2 lions with their tails up, staring at the impala but not salivating. Our guide Rafiki told us that impala weren’t worth the effort to lions – more of a snack than a main meal. These lions had their eye on the eland, much bigger and also watching warily. Next we saw Thompsons gazelle, really cute little deer, fawn coloured with a black stripe down the side, and a couple of bat eared foxes bouncing through the grass. Then throughout the park we kept seeing poomba (well, warthogs!). That brought us to the discussion of the Big Five uglies. Four of these are found in Nakuru too – maroubi stork, hyena, buffalo, warthog.
We drove along the waters edge, looking at the beautiful pelicans, cranes, egrets, African darters, ibis, a sea eagle eating a fish and on the same log a monitor lizard and then, oh my gosh, a group of 5 hippos having a splash around. Gorgeous. And fat!
Back in to the grassland’s area and monkeys were messing around along the track. Zebra and buffalo were plentiful in the grassland, and a rhino with a cub was hiding amongst the buffalo. A troop of baboons followed us for a while, a big male sitting on a rock, legs wide apart, bits all hanging out. What is it with some males thinking they are sex gods?
When we got to wide open grasslands we came across the most beautiful and graceful animals – giraffe. They are so elegant. And photogenic! Great poseurs for the camera. And last of all, we came back to the lake, where zebra and buffalo were drinking and bathing, and birds were everywhere. including just one small flock of flamingo. Hundreds of pelicans ( much bigger than other birds), a few ibis, herons, cranes and one secretary bird! In the shallows of a smaller lake was a big fat hippo rolling on her side with a little calf.
Didn’t get to see the leopards, although of our way out we saw a dead baboon hanging over a branch, which Rafika told us was probably a leopard kill from the night before, and the leopard would be back to eat it when the tourists had gone.
Altogether we were in the park for 7 hours. Decent way to spend a Sunday.
Jimmy and Nico had packed our bags on the the bus, so there was time to buy a coffee to drink on the move and get on our way to Kisumu. A 4 hour drive over the edge of the Rift Valley, as need to get there before dark.
Drove through some poor areas, shacks, busy with stalls by the roadside and real poverty. And the as we climbed higher, the landscape changed. Became much greener, and looked like English fields. The tight it small box hedges are actually tea bushes, and we drove through miles of tea plantations around the town of Kericho. Huge very well manicured fields and then every so often a small settlement of brick built cottages. My first thought was army camp, but then I guessed they were the workers housing for the tea plantation. Following the Victorian philanthropic ideas of keep your workers in clean housing if you want to extract maximum work out of them! Quick restroom stop in Kericho then back on the road. Lucky this coach is comfy – been sitting in a jeep / coach for 11 hours now, and still at least another hour to go
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