Nakuru

Last weekend we took a day to visit the Lake Nakuru Game Park with Carolyn.  The main attractions at Nakuru are the large flocks of birds, including flamingo, and numerous white (and a few black) rhinos.

The day started early, leaving Najile around 6:30 and arriving around 3 hours later after an uneventful drive to Nakuru.  The roads were pristine and really the drive should have been an hour shorter except for the constant "flow" of trucks rolling along the one-land road at about 20 km/h. D'oh....you felt like you needed loudspeaker out the window blaring a recording of "move...get out the way" (an all-time great driving song if you ignore all the words aside from "move get out the way").

The day was wonderful, the sun peaked out but generally the weather was overcast which is a blessing when driving around a lake.  The park is centered around the lake and has cliffs overlooking the one park to the west and forest to the south.  Despite being the high tourist season, you didn't get the overcrowded feeling of Maasai Mara (where every lion is tailed by 52 safari vans).  We entered from the main gate at the north (only Ksh 1000 for resident's entry fee!) and then drove counterclockwise around the lake.

Our first major animal siting was of cape buffalo and rhinos.  You can basically get right next to the animals since they sit on the paths, though its advisable to stay 20m away.  With two babies ready to scream at any moment, we decided to keep the windows closed..... Other animals we saw were huge herds of flamingos and some sort of over-sized stork/pelican that loved to beat its wings on the water. 

For lunch, we drove up to an overlook of the lake and had a bit of a picnic.   The girls enjoyed looking around and at one point were surrounded by a fan-club of Kenyan school girls.  Fortunately, we found a quite corner to eat our packed lunch and watch a dung beetle roll his dung ball up a small hill against all odds.

In the afternoon we drove around to the southern side of the lake through a beautiful forest of yellow acacias.  We saw some black and white colobus  monkeys high in the trees and then came out among an enormous herd of buffalo crossing the road.  Later we watched as three rhinos (including a young one) munched grass by the road and then waited with two male lions (positioned under a tree) who were eying a lioness perched above. 

As the day wore on we stopped by the southern lakeshore and took some pictures with the flamingos.  It definitely had the feel (and salt-watery smell) of the beach and it was a joy to walk around and enjoy the birds.  We ended up the day by backtracking to the northwest corner to get one more rhino siting. 

All in all, the day was a great joy.  The girls enjoyed seeing so many animals and were happy to go to bed when we arrived at 7pm.  We definitely would recommend Lake Nakuru to anybody looking for an alternative park to Maasai Mara with lots of birds and rhinos.