Lake Nakaru National Park

We weren’t leaving so early this morning, so I spent the hour before breakfast editing photos. We both take so many every day that sorting them out is a full-time job! Breakfast was at 8am – sausages, eggs, fruit, coffee, juice, and toast. Omondi picked this time to tell us we would have to pay again for today’s visit to Nakaru National Park and then wait for a refund later for the money we had already paid to go to Amboseli! We hadn’t changed the itinerary! It was his suggestion!! We were not best pleased, but at this late hour, had little choice but to comply. So, I paid another US$125, and we set off.

Omondi had told us it would only take an hour to reach the park and that we would have a whole-day game drive. Neither of these things proved to be true! We drove through Naivasha town and then stopped at an out-of-town shopping mall for Omondi to buy snacks for himself. His five minutes turned into 20!!

We drove past Delamere Park and Farm, which Omondi told us belongs to HM Queen Elizabeth II, and that trespassers are shot dead on sight! He also said that planes take off twice a day to deliver fresh meat, dairy products, and vegetables to Her Majesty (or King Charles, as it would be now!). This all sounded very implausible! When I fact checked later, there was no mention of any royal connection with the farm! The British-born owner, 89-year-old Hugh George Cholmondeley, 5th Baron Delamere, is a British peer who was educated at Eton and Cambridge, but that is as far as it goes! I think Omondi’s idea of guiding is to take any grain of truth he has and then make the rest up!!

Our next landmark was Lake Elementaita. Local legend has it that God dug it out in one day using a spade. He used the earth he removed to create a nearby mountain!

We stopped for fuel in the town of Nakaru, where it seemed like every other building is a church! We then entered Lake Nakaru National Park through Nderit Gate. There were problems with Omondi’s paperwork, so we were delayed further. He told us that all the drivers were complaining about the entry system. We saw no evidence of this. Every other vehicle seemed to get through without issue!

We eventually got into the park at around 11.40am. It was a very different landscape from other parks we have visited. There were huge swathes of forest. It was difficult to spot wildlife through such dense bush. There were millions of butterflies, though! There are tree-climbing lions in the park, as well as ground ones. This means that leopard numbers are low as they have to compete with the stronger lions.Read more