Laikepia And Nairobi

The stars were beautiful to look as I lay wrapped up in my duvet in the middle of the field. Nim was zonked out next to me and the others were fast asleep too ( as far as I could tell ). The next thing I knew was being shaken awake by Nim, telling me that I should wake up as the sun was rising and it would be a nice thing to see! It was beautiful and was the perfect sight for our last morning in Kenya. 

We had a slightly lazy morning, packing down the camp and tidying everything away before heading back. Along the way, we made a few stops to watch elephants rolling around in mud, to see a few hippos, giraffes, zebra and birds as well as to climb some more rocks to have a look at the views and see what we could spot. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any lions or leopards but we did make it back in time for a late breakfast.

Nim and I had some time to shower and change before going out on our last drive. We didn’t find anything new but did spend some time admiring some animals we had seen before? We ended up back at the waterfall, where Nim, Jasper, and Ollie had some boy time jumping into the water off the rocks again, messing about in the smaller waterfalls. After sending Ollie in the raft to do his best hippo impression, they scrambled up some of the bigger rocks to jump off, this did also result in them having a mothers meeting while at the highest point so that they could work out the best way to jump. Everyone else joined us so we could have some lunch, I really miss the food we had as it was always so tasty! Once we were full we made our rounds of saying goodbye to everyone before jumping in the car with Jasper to go and collect our things. 

After we were changed, fully packed and good to go we met Jasper back in the mess tent. Ollie and a few of the others had made it back so Ollie came to wave us off as we piled our bags in the car and climbed in the back. This was the beginning of a very interesting journey. It all started perfectly well, bouncing along down the bumpy roads and chatting away with each other. Somewhere along the way, as per, I fell asleep which amazed Jasper somewhat as the roads aren’t exactly smooth. When I woke up, the boys seemed slightly stressed as it turns out that we made a wrong turning somewhere along the way and weren’t going the right way. No matter how hard we tried to work it out, it just wasn’t making sense. The radios that are always taken on drives and all of our phones had no signal, which wasn’t much help. By this point, we were coming up to the time of our flight and Jasper was seriously stressed. He did finally manage to get enough signal to call Steve and ask for directions. Once we were back on track, with Jasper gunning it down bumpy tracks and us gaining airtime in the back, we managed to make it to the airstrip, where the pilot was waiting for us outside of the smallest aircraft I have been in. There were enough seats for two passengers and the pilot, it was that tiny! Jasper, still apologising profusely, gave us big cuddles and waved us off, waiting until we were in the air. We said a sad goodbye to Laikepia as we flew onwards back to Nairobi, it definitely had been a wonderful time!! 

The plane was chilly but the flight wasn’t long and we were soon landing back in Nairobi. We were met and transported down to Ole Sereni??? Where we checked into a lovely room and opened the bottle of wine left on the table. After some food and a bath, we curled up in bed and watched some of The Lion King before calling it a night and heading to sleep. 

Laikepia

5:40 saw the alarm buzzing and tea and juice being left outside the tent once more. We made our way to the mess tent and quite quickly, after some fruit, we were in the car on the way to where Steve knows a good route for walking.

After a short drive we all hopped out and began our trek, except Ollie who stayed with the car and would meet us at the end. We had a lovely morning walk through grass and over rocks, it was lovely except for the grass seeds, they get everywhere!! Along the way we saw elephants, giraffes, weavers and guineafowl as well as marks and signs from buffalo which had recently passed through the area. Jasper, who we were chatting to along the way, taught Nim and I all about bees, ants and termites and how their hierarchy and colonies work within the nests. We also found a termites nest which, due to fungus being a food source for them, had mushrooms growing at the top of it. Steve picked some and popped them into Jasper’s bag to take them back for dinner.

We had lunch on another dam, different from yesterday, where we were joined by lots more elephants. They were all playing in the water and in the mud.

We returned back to the tent where we had some down time to chill before our afternoon drive. I used this time to begin the packing as we leave tomorrow. We also had to pack an overnight bag, with pjs, toothbrushes and other essentials as we were joining Steve, Ollie and another couple Fly Camping for the night.

After an afternoon drive where we saw plenty of birds, some more elephants, giraffes, zebra and dicdics, we met up with the rest of the group for dinner around a huge fire. We had fire cooked vegetables and beef with some potatoes which all tasted great and was accompanied by some great chat and banter with Ollie and Jasper! The chunk of the group who weren’t camping departed and left us to it. We had some time to chill out by the fire before getting out the rolled beds and the mosquito tents. Once this was all set up and we had brushed our teeth, we all settled down in our beds. Ollie and Steve didn’t have tents but at least Steve had Trigger to keep him company. The beds were incredibly comfy, duvet and pillows on a rolled up mattress. Nothing like anything I’ve ever camped with before. As we stared up at the cloudy skies ( not a star to be seen ) I realised that this was the best end to a great safari trip!

Laikepia

The day began as the others had, with a 5:45 morning alarm, tea and juice being left outside the door. We decided to have a lie and join everyone at breakfast at 9. Nim went to let Steve and the others know and then came back to bed for another chunk of sleep. 

I made a friend during breakfast as I was about to put some honey on my pancakes when a bee came and sat on the knife with the honey. I decided to let the bee enjoy the honey and I swapped knifes so I could eat my breakfast too. The bee did seem to get into a bit of a mess as his legs were almost sticking together but he managed to sort himself out alright.  Our morning drive saw more weavers nests, this one was the black backed weaver, who’s nest is a lot neater than the others we had been seeing. 

We went to look for the elephants, who would most likely be hanging out by a water supply of some sort. This is because as it’s getting warmer, the elephants need to remain cool, so being in the water is one way to achieve this. They also like to throw mud around on themselves and each other as it creates a layer of something cool on their skin and it keeps the heat off them. Groups of elephants were found in most of the dams, ranging in numbers and size and we stayed to watch them all for a while. 

Lunch was held on a ledge overlooking one of the dams and we were joined by a small group of elephants as well as two adult hippos and a tiny baby hippo. Ollie, who had earlier in the week said that he wouldn’t mind going swimming with a hippo, was requested to fulfil this statement. He did buck up and have a small swim on the opposite edge to the hippos but he didn’t get as close as we reckon he could have done. Jasper also had to go wading into the weedy shallows of the pool as there was a creature that we were trying to fully work out what it was, so Steve threw Jasper’s hat into the area so he would go and collect it and find out what the thing we were looking at was. Needless to say that we didn’t fully decide what it was but Jasper did manage to be closer to the hippos than Ollie.  

We sourced some more elephants in the on the way back to camp as well as a striped hyena and some of the other animals that live on the ranch

After tea and cake, we headed out for another go at tracking the lions. We went for a long drive, pausing regularly to check the tracker but unfortunately had very little luck. We didn’t manage to find any as Steven ( one of the guides ) thought that the lions were the other side of the valley which is a ranch that they don’t have access too. We continued our drive home, pausing to see if a leopard was in a tree where we thought she might be. She had recently made a kill of a baby impala and had stashed it in a tree, away from the birds of prey and the hyena.  When we got there, she was no where to be seen and the impala had either been eaten or she moved her kill. 

Dinner was welcome and tasty, after a long day of driving. Nim, Ollie, Jasper and myself stayed chatting for a while after dinner, it was lovely to just chill for a bit. Bed, however, was definitely needed so we said our good nights and headed to our tent.

Laikepia

The day began once more to the sound of Nim’s watch and phone almost simultaneously beeping and ringing us awake, bright and early. The fact that it wasn’t all too bright as the sun hadn’t woken up yet made it even harder to haul ourselves out of bed. Juice, coffee and cookies were deposited outside the tent again for our wake up call which were well and truly enjoyed. As the cookies haven’t been gluten free I have been able to eat both of them, taking one for the team! We meandered down to the mess tent for fresh fruit and drinks before jumping into the trucks to go exploring. 

We took the trackers out again but we went looking for the wild dogs for the morning. On the way we also spotted many of the other animals, zebra, impala, dicdics, scrap hares, some elephants, guineafowl and giraffes. The dogs were found chilling in the sun in their pack, 3 adults with their 5 puppies from last year. They were so calm with us around which meant we could have a good look and see them in a solid amount of detail. 

We headed back for breakfast of eggs, although mine got lost somewhere as I think someone else ate them! We also had sausages, toast and pancakes. Nim got delivered a tray with a selection of gluten free pancakes and toast as the camp have been great on making sure he’s being fed correctly. Much appreciated by the both of us! 

After breakfast we all grabbed swimming things, flipflops and made sure we had sun cream on. I needed the factor 50 whereas Nim opted for the 30. We made our way down with Steve, Ollie, Jasper ( another of the guides ) and another family to a part of the river where we could do some rafting. Nim and I jumped in with Ollie, who steered but didn’t always have the best direction. The ranch has 4 dogs; Boris, Trigger, Philly and Buster and they all decided ( with Steve’s permission ) that they wanted to come and play too. Trigger was the happiest in the water whereas the other three decided to stay on the bank running alongside us with Jasper. Trigger did get hauled into Steve’s boat when he got tired before Steve took him back to the bank for Jasper to look after. 

We found some rapids which Steve attempted first to make sure that it was alright to play on. The other family were taken down, one at a time, by their dad whereas I got into the front of Steve’s raft and he splashed our way down. Ollie bought Nim down and I think Ollie had great fun as he volunteered to take both Nim and I down again. It was lots of hard work lugging the rafts up around the sand to get back to the top but it was well worth it. Once we had played, we continued down the river drifting in the nice current until we spotted some Hippos. We decided we wouldn’t play with them, as we knew we wouldn’t win so we jumped back into the truck, which Jasper had driven down along the river by us. 

We made our way down to the waterfall we had been to for sundown yesterday where we scrambled over some more of the rocks, Nim and I found it so much easier barefooted rather than in Vans. Jasper jumped into one of the rafts and paddled out to check if there were any hippos by slapping the water with a paddle and making grunting hippo noises. It was very funny to watch and once he confirmed there wasn’t any in the pool then we went to play! We all clambered up more of the rocks to get to a rock ledge overlooking the pool. It was a lot of fun jumping in from the ledge, but I did ask Ollie to go first so I had someone to follow!

After we had all had some time messing around, we headed out to meet the rest of the campers ( who didn’t come with us ) for some lunch. On the way back to the ranch after lunch, we had a small encounter with an elephant where he didn’t seem to like us and was giving us a showdown. We all stayed very quiet and let him calm down before we continued back to camp. 

For the afternoon, after tea and cake, we headed off to see the wild dogs again as we hoped that they would be hunting at this time of day. Luck so had it that they were hunting and we got to track them to see the start of a hunt and observe what they caught. The dogs are fast and their usual lunch is dicdic. They make a twittering sound while they hunt so they know where the others are and also to communicate during the hunt. It’s so interesting to watch and see how it all works. 

We had sundown a way away from the pack and I spotted on the way home. We saw a hippo, some impala, more dicdics, scrap hares and an elephant but not a lot else. Dinner and bed was in order as it had been a jam packed day!

Laikepia

The alarm was a horrible and rude awakening at 5:40, a well and truly stupid time of morning especially when away on holiday. Coffee, juice and a couple of cookies were bought to the tent to encourage us out of bed. Once we were ready, we wandered down to the mess tent for some fruits and juices. 

We were then taken out on a long drive for the morning. It was a rather chilly start to the day and Nim had left his jumper in the tent so we wrapped up in a blanket in the back of the truck. We had decided to go on a mission to find some of the lions. There are a couple who are collared to help with tracking ( this has been done by a neighbouring ranch ) which made it a bit easier. Only trouble, is that the range for the electric tracker is 10 kilometres, rather a large area to scan! Along the way, we had the pleasure of seeing elephants, a journey of 28 giraffes, lots more dicdics, impala, a water buck, a spotted hyena and her two cubs and lots more. We did manage to get a small glimpse of the lion, but he didn’t stick around for long, the rumble of the truck didn’t seem to impress him very much. 

We headed down to a viewpoint where we met everyone else and had some lunch, very much needed as we were both rather hungry! Afterwards, we headed back to the camp to change into swimwear so we could go and have a play in part of the river. The water was extremely murky and chilly but we had some fun playing and gliding down with the current. Nim decided we should “swim like the otters do” and hold hands while we floated. 

Post swim, we came back for showers, tea and cake and decided what the plan was for the afternoon. Steve and Ollie decided to take us and another of the families staying on the camp up to ‘Baboon Rock’ for sundown. This meant a short drive before abandoning Ollie with the car and walking the rest of the way. We scrambled up the rock face, vans maybe weren’t the best option of footwear but they are definitely better than flipflops. After a wander through a lot of grass seeds and bushes, spotting a scorpion or two and seeing an ant trail where all the workers were bringing back food, we came across a spot overlooking a waterfall and a small pool. We had sundown sitting on some rocks, admiring creation in all it’s beauty!

We headed back to the tent to get ready for dinner when we heard someone calling from outside explaining that there was a leopard settled just outside of camp and we should come and see it ( if we liked ). We quickly ran to the truck and bumped our way down the path to where the leopard was. She was so calm and chilled, not minding the truck’s headlights at all. We all had time to admire her before heading back to camp for food. Dinner consisted of steak, crispy potatoes and a chocolate toffee pudding which was most delicious. Bedtime was most welcome and sleep wasn’t hard to find as it had been a long day.