OUR WALK WITH THE WILD ANIMALS

We had spoken to a guide yesterday afternoon to outline the activities that could be done in the area for our free day today.  Most of us had decided to do the game walk this morning we would have lunch and then we would do an hour’s cruise on Lake Naivasha and then Nicola, Jess, Effie and Ads were going to go for a horse ride after the boat cruise.  It was going to be a busy day and after breakfast at 7.30am we were collected by a minivan and met our guide Chris for the morning.  It was a little bit of a squeeze, but we got 12 of us in the van for the 45 minute drive.  We got to pass some more of the flower houses and it really does give you an indication just how big the flower industry is here.  We passed the oldest and largest flower farm called Oserian.  It is the most technically advanced fair-trade certified flower farm in Kenya, consistently producing year round quality flower products.  Oserian meaning “Place of Peace” in the Masai language and it is the largest flower farm of its kind in Kenya.  Founded in 1969, they began as a family owned vegetable growing farm in 1969, with a 5 hectare production area and 6 employees.  Oserian gradually evolved into the first cut flower production farm in 1982. They support the welfare of nearly 4,600 employees in health, housing, education and entertainment and also supports 3,000 plus employee dependents.  Yes Oserian is a massive flower farm based on those facts.    

We were heading this morning to Crater Lake Game Sanctuary and after travelling for 45 minutes on a very dusty, powdery dust, fine dust road, and apparently the road can differ in condition at different times of the year (depending on when it was graded last) and I would hate to see this road after the rains as it would be muddy as hell.  We made it to the entrance of the sanctuary just after 9am where the park entrance fee was paid (20USD) and then we paid 20USD each for Chris the guide for the 3 hours that we were on the tour.  Once we were in the reserve, we followed the electric fence line along a small track, which wasn’t a problem, except it was a single track and there was a car coming the other way and even though the fence was over a meter away, it had these current arms sticking out from the fence every 10m, so we lost the 1m leeway.  It took a few minutes and a few manoeuvres to get the other car to pass without us touching some of these electrical current arms and it must have been as serious as you would think as the driver didn’t want to touch them.  We were dropped at the start of a plain and the minivan would be meet us at a different point at the end of the tour and with that he drove off leaving us standing on a large plain where we could see zebras in the distance and wildebeest only 100m away from us.  It felt a little surreal that we were going to go walking in a sanctuary where lions live, giraffes, buffalo and wildebeest to name a few roamed freely.  We were at the mercy of the wild animals and on FOOT!!!!  

Crater Lake Game Sanctuary is located around the south-western side of Lake Naivasha Crater Lake on 10,000 acres and is only one of 3 parks that you are allowed to walk around in the whole of Kenya.  This small game sanctuary is great fun to explore on foot independently or with a local guide, which is what we had and I am not sure I would want to walk around on my own here without a guide!!!  There is no public transport to Crater Lake so it is best accessed either by either bike or with a private vehicle or taxi.  The area is known to be alive with hundreds of species of birds and many mammals, large and small. While walking through the conservancy we were GUARANTEED to spot some of the favourites including gazelle, giraffe, zebra, eland, baboon and black and white colobus monkeys.  Seriously it was so cool as we walked deeper into the forest and started spotting the zebra’s that unfortunately a little skittish of our presence but we did get at one point within 40m of these cool animals that you saw in picture books as a child.  I LOVE zebra’s.  We saw a herd of buffalo that seemed to be keeping a beady on us, and we were a little weary of them after the stories that Dan told us about these animals yesterday when we were game viewing in Nakuru National Park.  We also saw some giraffes in the distance that we had to sidle around the buffalos to get a closer look at these magnificent animals and we were able to get within 50m from them as well but didn’t seem to upset that we were there, and this was a highlight of the walk.  The animal of the day (in numbers) were the zebra and we even saw a mini stampede of around 10 of them at one point which was super awesome.  We saw a family of Pumbas (warthogs) and even though they are an ugly creature, when you see the 4 of them running in a single file with their tales high in the sky, they look pretty cute, and who would ever thought that warthog and cute would go in the same sentence?  It’s great that all the animals live together without any problems and after 1.5 hours we stated to make our way to the other side of the sanctuary, heading up hill for 10 minutes seeing families of impala and reaching our rest destination at the rim of the beautiful volcanic crater.  The guys climbed some rocks to get an amazing view down to the emerald-green lake in the crater where they could see colobus monkeys below and there was also a family of giraffes also in the crater.  Depending on the water levels of other Rift Valley lakes, there are sometimes large populations of flamingos on the lake, which we were not fortunate enough to see.  I wasn’t too keen on the small climb up the rocks for the view, but I was able to get a view point to the side of the boulders and then we were going to head down in the crater, so I would still get to see it anyway, so I wasn’t too bothered about climbing the boulders.    

After a small rest at 10.45am we started to make our way down the crater where we could see the tiny jade-green crater lake and it is held in high regard by the local Masai, who even believe its water helps soothe ailing cattle.  At the beginning, Crater Lake was born from the violent volcanic upheaval that created the Great Rift Valley some 30 million years ago.  The lake exists since some thousands years. Today it covers between 12 and 15 hectares of the 87- hectare crater. Its average depth is between 4 and 5 meters with a maximum of 8 meters.  The lake is highly alkaline and it can't support fish but only Spirulina algae that feeds flamingos.  As we hiked down the lake was to our left as we made our way to the small resort we could see from the vantage point.  It was a rough track that had some lose dirt and rocks at the top and then the further we descended the more soily it got and then the closer we got to the lake it got a little muddy before we reached Crater Lake Lodge 30 minutes later.  I got some great photos of some colobus monkeys as we passed them in the trees and it is amazing to think that the giraffes that were in the crater also come and go the same way we just did.  It’s incredible that their spindly legs could handle the loose stones and the steepness at the top of the crater.  We did see a giraffe head skeleton near the lake, so maybe some of them don’t make it out alive!  The lake is a green soda lake at the bottom of an extinct volcano on the western side of Lake Naivasha and north of the village of Kongoni.  After a small rest at Crater Lake Lodge we climbed the 200+ steps to get back out of the crater and then we had time to get to a view point that gave us a view of the opposite side of the crater from where we had just come from and then it was time to head back to camp and to lunch that would be waiting for us.

After lunch we were collected again for out hour long cruise on Lake Naivasha.  The boat/canoe could only take 7 people and no matter how many people we had in the boat it would be 7,000KSH for the trip.  We were lucky we had 7 people and only paid 1000KSH each for the trip.  Our cam is located on the lake and we only had to walk 7 minutes to get to the canoe that was waiting for us.  It looked a lot like the boats that we used when I was in the Amazon last year, so not a tiny canoe-but a larger version where we could sit 2 abreast.  We were handed life jackets as we boarded/climbed into the boat and with a push off and the start of the motor we were on our way.  The weather had turned a little and it was overcast and a little cool, but not too cold to be uncomfortable.  Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya, outside the town of Naivasha. It is part of the Great Rift Valley and the name derives from the local Masai name meaning "rough water" because of the sudden storms which can arise on the lake.  Lake Naivasha is at the highest elevation of the Kenyan Rift valley at 1,890 metres with a surface area of 139 km², and is surrounded by a swamp which covers an area of 64 square km, but this can vary largely depending on rainfall.  The lake has an average depth of 6m with the deepest area being at Crescent Island, at a maximum depth of 30m. 

The lake is home to a variety of types of wildlife including over 400 different species of bird and a sizeable population of hippos. The fish community in the lake has been highly variable over time, influenced by changes in climate, fishing effort and the introduction of invasive species. The most recent shift in the fish population followed the accidental introduction of common carp in 2001.  Nine years later, in 2010, common carp accounted for over 90% of the mass of fish caught in the lake.  Between 1937 and 1950 the lake was used as a landing place for flying boats on the Imperial Airways passenger and mail route from Southampton in Britain to South Africa. It linked Kisumu and Nairobi. Joy Adamson, the author of Born Free, lived on the shores of the lake in the mid-1960s. On the shores of the lake is the Djinn Palace, which gained notoriety in the Happy Valley days between the two world wars.

The water level of this lake was also very high and the first things we noticed as we pulled out was a Caterpillar bulldozer submerged in water, a bar was marooned about 100m from the mainland and there were also electricity lines that were also water logged.  The lake lived up to its reputation with birdlife and there were bazillion white and black necked cormorants during the whole cruise.  We were also lucky enough to see a herd of hippos straight up along the edge of the lake and there was one out of the water and I was able to get some great shots of him looking straight at us.  It was also at this point that we found out that Nicola was a little nervous of the hippos when they went under water as she had stumbled across a story where hippos are inclined to swim up to boats and bump them so that we all fall out and then they chomp us to death, as they are herbivores, so it is not to eat us, but they are known as the most dangerous animal in Africa, even more so than the lion.  It is funny how Nic only tells us now that we are in a small boat a long way from land about this paranoia of getting tipped out of the boat by a hippo.  Once they went under water she was a basket case and telling Dave, our boat driver to high tail it out of there and it wasn’t just Nic being funny-she really was scared that we would be tipped out.  We motored on the lake looking at more of the cormorants on dead trees that were on the edges of the lake and we saw a few more herds of hippos totally around 40 hippos for the day, so you can imagine what Nic was like seeing so many of these boat tipping animals (according to Nic).  Poor Dave, I think it was just as well he was at the back of the boat and couldn’t really hear Nic telling him to back it up and that he was a nutter.  This is a guy who has probably lived on the lake all his life, so I am sure he knows what he is doing, but when someone is scared-common sense goes out the window I guess.  Hippos are so cool and we managed to see 2 out of the 40+ open their mouths and only Effie was the one to get a photo of it.

On our way back to land, Driver Dave had one more thing to show us and we motored to another section of the lake where we could see 2 fish eagles on the top of the trees.  Dave then pulled out an actual fish and started waving it over his head in the air.  These birds would have been at least 700m away and after throwing the fish in the water and pulling out another one, Dave told us to get ready with our cameras and then as if the birds had heard him they left the tree and started to fly towards the fish that Dave had thrown in the water about 15m away from the boat.  They flew in a circle down, down, down and then one of them with their talons out scooped the fish from the surface of the water and then flew off with the fish.  It was pretty amazing and I didn’t think I had caught the shot, but when I checked my photos on the computer later, I had the perfect, if not a little pixelated shot of the fish eagle.  It was now time for us to motor back and with the wind picking up a little and some very dark clouds blowing in it was perfect timing.    

When we finally got back to land, the girls doing the horse riding had their horses waiting for them as we got out of the canoe.  I tell ya, it is keen, and not really being a horse person I wished them luck and headed back to camp with Anne.  When we got back there was another overland truck pulling into the camp, it was a Gecko’s truck, and after I had dropped my gear off in the truck Susan came over and told me that Julius was the guide on the truck.  Julius was my first guide on my African overland in 2011 to Uganda and Rwanda and I have been meaning to touch base with him since my move to Kenya and just haven’t really followed through with it.  So after his guys had put up their tents and settled in a little I went over to say hi and just hoped that Julius would remember me.  I mean you think it has been over 2 years since my trip, how many people has he been on tour with since then-but as Dan said, how could he forget someone like me-and I have to agree and I was rewarded with a massive smile and a ‘OMG’ (which is Julius through and through) I said hi.  We swapped numbers and we had a quick chat and with a promise that we would catch up later.  What were the chances of us being at the same camp on the same day on different tours-that is fate.  We have also made some four legged friends that live around the camp and one of our favourites was a little white dog that looked like a cross between a fox terrier and something else.  He actually looks like the dog off the TV show Frasier, Eddie-so we decided to adopt that name for him and he became the fast favourite of our group.

We had a couple of hours before dinner, so with laptop in hand a few of us headed to the bar for a few drinks, loading photos before heading back to camp for dinner.  We had a Kenyan feast tonight of chapatti, ugali, lentils, stewed meat and vegetables.  While we were doing the dishes after dinner, the saying that many hands make light work, which was so appropriate for our group as we would all pitch in, even if we weren’t rostered onto do the washing, and between the 15 of us we would have everything washed and flapped within half an hour.  It was during the flapping that Evie noticed something on the ground as she was flapping.  In her defence it was dark and everyone had head torches as the form of light and she told Pete it looked like Eddie had chewed his slipper and she bent down to pick it up and with a squeal she realised it was a tongue and it was as big as my hand type of tongue-probably from the abattoir across the road from the camp-but it was so funny that you go from a slipper call to the tongue of an animal and Eddie was so put off with us all laughing that he left it there and it was still there the following morning.  I think we may have upset him a little-the poor fella!!!  After dinner we headed back to the bar for a few more cheeky drinks before bed.  I had to have a shower tonight and there was mixed experiences on which shower blocks to use as to which one had the hot water, so Anne went to one and I went to the other and when we met back up at the tent it worked out that both blocks had hot water.  I remember Lisa and I used to either have late showers after the mad rush of the evenings had finished or we set our alarms 15 minutes earlier than everyone else to avoid the mad rush for the showers and toilets in the mornings.  You smarten up a little when you are camping for 8 weeks.

The best thing about this camp site, besides Eddie, the bar with cold beers and the hot showers was that their Wi-Fi worked from our tent.  Yes this was a certainly a pretty cool campsite and I even got a free sticker from reception and bar coasters as souvenirs of our stay here.  +++ for Crayfish Camp.