Naivasha

Before leaving Australia Rod had a mental picture of himself walking in the African bush and having a giraffe walk past. It was a beautiful image that up until now he had not fully achieved. We have seen lots of giraffe, hundreds actually, but all from a car or truck, that is until we went to Lake Naivasha.

Wendy and Alan’s farm on the shores of the lake has some nice bush that we took a stroll through, keeping a watchful eye out for buffalo just as we had been warned to do. No buffaloes were there but we did see waterbuck, wildebeest, zebras, hippos, dik dik, monkeys and of course giraffes. We actually got to walk amongst the wild giraffes! Sigh. They are such graceful and gentle and beautiful creatures.

Sundown drinkies by the lakes edge was quite serene with all the zebras and waterbucks grazing about amid the evening’s pastel colours. We only decided to pack up and walk back when a hippo stepped out of the water right in front of us so that it could do its evening feed. Gorgeous that they may be, hippos can actually be quite dangerous.

The next morning Graham and Savanna took us for an early morning boat ride around the lake on a bird watching trip. It was just grand, there are so many different types of birds there, as well as dozens of hippos. We even saw a recently born baby hippo resting on the bank.

Lake Naivasha is our new favourite place on the planet.