At 5.20am it was like the starting gates at Ascot, doors were flung open and people raced to breakfast, at least I think they were racing to breakfast maybe there was another reason, well it was only one night.
After what was quite a pleasant breakfast alfresco, we sat and watched the night turn to early morning. Food consumed we loaded our bags and bodies into the bus ready for the
6.30am opening of the park. We were possibly the first people into th
e park, well we would have if there wasn’t a 10 minute delay whilst they sorted out the quicker pre-paid entrance tickets.
Then we were off, the first one to spot an animal was asked to buy the coffees, this deterred no one and within minutes there was the cry of zebra, missed it. A few seconds later there was another cry of zebra, missed it again. This wasn’t going to be quite as easy as being at Chester zoo.
With the early morning mist still lingering across the park we continued on, then we came across
the animals in their herds, water buffalo were all over the place. These were closely followed by water buck and Gibbons.
As we progressed through the park in the distance we viewed Flamingos on the lake and soon came across a Hyena. Buffalo and water buck came along quite frequently followed by Impalas and then the cry went out that had us all craning our necks (no pun intended), Giraffe, and sure enough hidden in the bushes was our first giraffe, good spot Anne.
Could we top this? yes. A short while later Paul Hegerty was heard to shout “Rhino” and trotting along in the distance was a solitary Black Rhino. Now I could go on listing the animals we saw throughout the morning but it would mean nothing to most, however, whilst watching the flamingos and pelicans by the lakeside another less frequent but none the less important cry went out, “where’s the toilets?” so everybody back on the bus and in search of toilets we went.
As you can imagine after 2.5 hours driving round the bladders were a bit on the full side, but would the animals stop appearing? No, so it was a stop start ride over bumpy tracks that did little for the bladder but the animals were nice!
Toilets were found at a superb viewing point, or so we found out following a trip to the facilities. Carl and Steve were first in, Steve to the left Carl to the right. Within seconds the sounds of gagging were coming from the right trap. I must confess that I could not understand the problems Carl was having keeping his breakfast down, on exiting the left cubicle all was revealed, Carl was in the loo that was the hole in the ground! After several days, weeks, months or even years in the baking sun the aroma was literally stomach turning, you’ll not be surprised that a queue quickly formed at the left hand loo. The women however were made of sterner stuff, they went to they’re toilet took one look and crossed their legs until we left the park!!
Following the group looking at the stunning views and Carl’s breakfast settling we set off again, there were 2 more hours of viewing animals which were just as stunning as the previous including the small herd of white rhino.
As we were heading for the exit we were stopped for a routine check by the National Park staff, after several minutes of conversation we followed them to the exit and after quite some time and our tickets checked we were allowed to leave the park.
The next part of the journey started following a visit to a local supermarket for lunch, so there we were winding through the back streets of Nakuru passing sandwiches down the bus heading for Thompson Falls.
Thompson Falls was a bit under-whelming , with a small charge of 200ks per person Sarah was promptly given all the cameras and sent off to take pictures for us, obviously there’s Scottish blood running through us. Following Eleanor, Andy, Sarah and Paul’s camel ride at the falls we then loaded the coach up with us all and headed off to the equator.
What can I tell you about the equator, it was raining!! So two brave souls stuck their heads out of the bus window took a couple of photo’s of the equator sign and we were off to Outspan.
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