Nakuru

Parks and Gardens

Lake Nakuru National Park

It was an early start but I managed to fit in a big breakfast as I was unsure what the food would be like on the trek. Entertainingly, it was clear that the rest of the people in the restaurant were also on the tour, but we didn’t know each other at this point and so didn’t talk.

After completing the standard paperwork, we loaded it into the specially constructed tour lorry.

The bus is quite the feat of engineering, with 24 seats and two tables at the back. The ground level is all storage lockers for tents, rucksacks, food, and two that unfold into a kitchen. There is an awning that folds out and special storage for 2 long collapsable tables. It's all very efficiently designed.

We then drove a couple of hours to Lake Nakuru National Park. There were only five of us at this stage of the journey, and we had 24 seats between us, so we found it very easy to swap sides so we could see everything in the park.

Wildlife was everywhere and we were able, over the course of the day to get images of three of the big five.

We caught a wounded lioness licking her wounds by the side of the road. Dozens of Water Buffalo and four White Rhinos, though these kept a respectable distance.

We stopped for lunch on a bluff over the lake, a stunning vista I shot in HDR. There was a small school group there who were fascinated by the gang of white people cooking their own meal and shyly asked to have their photos taken with some of us.

After food, it was back in the truck to capture more wildlife.

That evening, we got to our first camp. The weather was poor and the light was failing, but we did pretty well in getting our tents up for the first time. Because there were only five of us at this time, we could have a tent each and double up on mattresses. Luxury!

I also realized I’d packed completely wrong. Whilst the dry bags for each kind of clothes worked well, I needed an “overnight” bag of things like an alarm clock, mosquito repellent, and water that could be easily taken into the tent and out again without having to do a complete reorder every evening. As such, my belt bag became a bag for the evening and served quite well. Sometimes you just can’t plan properly if you don’t have the experience and book learning just isn’t enough.

This was when we discovered how lucky we were in our camp cook, Simon. He did a simple soup followed by Spaghetti Bolognese and it was excellent. Considering the equipment he had to work it, it was remarkable. We had a couple of beers at the bar in the campsite, Kenya’s favourite, Tusker, before we headed to bed at the kingly time of 9:30 pm.