Nelly meets an elephant and then 100 more

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We had a rare leisurely start and spent a few hours tidying and cleaning the truck (which would later prove a waste of time but we didn’t know that at the time!). We then headed into Marsabit to re-stock on food and fuel for our journey south through some of Kenya’s national parks.

Our goal was to reach the lesser visited Samburu national park near Archer’s Post in northern Kenya. The drive was amazingly easy with good tarmac and every police checkpoint just waved us through, it was (for once) relatively easy.

On arrival at the park the rangers gave us a little guidance, although they sort of said go everywhere you like but all the animals are in one particular area. So we set off in the midday sun to find some of Africa’s finest animals. We got really excited when we saw an elephant but then about 20 minutes later we were surrounded by about 15 in the woods near a river. We sat very still hoping they wouldn’t see us as a threat, it would be a lie to say we weren’t a little nervous but they were just amazing. They didn’t seem bothered by us at all and in fact one big bull walked right past the car, brushing the side mirror in doing so. He then proceeded to fart, wee and poo just by the car. A good sign he wanted us to move on.

So we travelled further in and saw Zebra, crocodiles, numerous types of gazelle, reticulated giraffes, monkeys and about 100 different types of bird. I think over the course of the afternoon we saw well over 100 elephants either playing in the water, fighting, walking in procession and mainly eating thorn bushes. We also saw many giraffe all over the place. Unfortunately despite much looking and hunting we didn’t see any predators, but there is always tomorrow morning.

The rangers were very good to us and let us camp by their base at the entrance, saving us a small fortune on fees in the park and giving us somewhere safe to stay. When we visited one camping option in the park there were 3 huge elephants there having a back scratch on a tree.

It is very hot here, there are plenty of small insects (although not many seem to bite). We look forward to more animals tomorrow.

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