Hells gate

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At the weekend we packed up a picnic and drove to Hells Gate national park. The scenery is striking with volcanic plugs jutting out of incredibly flat landscape with a gorge cutting through. The drive to the park was particularly impressive as I got my first glimpse of the Great Rift Valley. It is impossible to get any sense of scale when you are looking at the scenery as it is so vast.

As I was the only person in the car not to have seen the wildlife (this is Steves second time here), I felt like an over-exited child when we saw our first zebra. They just look so cool with their crazy stripes, and there were loads of them. I was even more exited when we saw a herd of giraffe lolloping along next to a group of buffalo, which are huge and apparently very dangerous. Although they don’t eat meat they defend themselves very well and will attack. We were told that the front part of their horns which covers their forehead is so thick and strong that a bullet cannot penetrate it. Pretty tough animals though less of the pretty.

We also got to see some more warthogs running across the road and some baboons who were quite frankly exposing themselves to us. One big fella sat by the side of the road should have been wearing a dirty old mac.

We stopped off for an immense picnic which was delicious. There are no lions in Hells Gate so I was assured that having a picnic is a safe thing to do. The other affect of having no lions in the park is that all the impala and gazelles look quite relaxed. We wondered if there were rumours all over Africa of this haven for all animals who might be prey for a lion, so pretty much all the animals. You can imagine the zebras speaking in hushed tones about this sanctuary and how they are going to get there.

Unfortunately Steve had come down with man flu and had taken a night nurse under the impression that it was a day nurse so was completely whacked out. Despite Steve being drugged we had a really good day and got to see some amazing animals.

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