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Published: March 7th 2020
After breakfast and admiring the little red-rumped birds that were flitting about the lodge grounds we set off driving past the Aberdares. We had originally wanted to visit the Aberdare National Park and it did look beautiful, but we saw similar habitats whilst hiking on Mt Kenya and apparently it is very hard to see the wildlife here – unsurprising give the dense forests. It was a long drive today but we stopped for lunch by Nyahururu Falls (Thomson's Falls) where we had to fight off shop owners and traditionally dressed posers! We did have one worrying moment when the minibus engine seemed to misbehave – but after poking it a bit all seemed fine. From here it wasn’t much further round to
Lake Nakuru National Parkwhere we went straight into a game drive. It was rather sad to see how much the lake has flooded in recent years, largely as a result of extensive deforestation. The old lake shore and many of the tracks are now underwater and in some areas only a narrow strip of habitat still remains. Several creatures had to relocated to other parks to prevent over-crowding or them breaking out of the park into the nearby town. Because of
Zebras
Lake Nakuruthis there are a lot fewer flamingos here than previously – the large flamingo flocks used to be a main reason for visitors – but we still saw some on the lake and managed to walk out on a spit of land next to a flooded track to get good views of them. Luckily just far enough away for the lone rhino to not notice us!
During the drive we saw:
• Zebra
• Impala
• Water buck
• Eland
• White rhino
• Vervet monkeys
• Baboons
• Gazelles (Grant’s?)
• Fish eagles
• A kite
• Marabou stork
• Yellow-billed stork
• Pelican
• Flamingo
• Hammerkop
• Egyptian geese
• Ibis
• Cormorants
• Many other smaller waders
It was quite windy near the lake and this kicked up quite a duststorm dropping visibility to only a few meters at one point! We were staying in the rather upmarket (for us!) Lake Nakuru Lodge because the cheaper site has been overrun by baboons so was unsafe to use! Lovely view from our small veranda down to the lake, where we could just make out a rhino, and several little birds flitting around, including a lilac-breasted roller. The hot shower was wonderfully powerful and afterwards I felt the cleanest I’d ever been
in Africa! Over supper we again splashed out & shared half a bottle of wine. Sadly we didn’t see anything interesting grazing nearby during the night, the only animal we saw was a small gecko!
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