Thursday 19th January 2017

After a light and rather delicious continental breakfast, we had a smooth landing at 4.30am.  Getting through immigration was reasonably easy as we had already got the paperwork for our visas and had prepaid for them.  We had to fill in another form with exactly the same information as well but hey ho.  Our luggage came through fast and we passed through customs to the meet and greet area outside the terminal.  We had to wait 10 minutes for Jackson who was driving us to Wilson airport where domestic departures go from. We got there at 5.50am so had to wait 10 minutes for the airport to open up.  We were ushered through by lots of smiling, friendly people and had a hot drink and a muffin before waiting in the lounge for our flight which was scheduled for 8.30am.

We actually left at 8.15am on a Cessna Caravan operated by Kenya Airways and were the only passengers on board.  We got a good view of Nairobi and were somewhat shocked about the size of the slum areas which were obvious from their corrugated iron roofs over shacks. 

Our flight was about an hour and it was lovely to spot elephant and zebra on the approach to the runway.  We were greeted by our guide, George, who unusually for an African has the most terrible teeth.  He’s missing his 2 front ones which gives him a lisp plus he pronounces his “R’s” as “L’s” so isn’t that easy to understand but I’m getting used to it.  In other words, “Rhinos” are “Linos” and “Lizards” are “Rizards”!!

We set off for the lodge but had a game drive on route.  We’re surprised at how shrubby it is here with lots of low thick bush, long grass and scattered huge trees including baobab.  It’s also got a lot of water with the park intersected by a lot of small rivers.  It wasn’t long before we saw a small herd of elephants under an acacia tree, then water buck, buffalos, zebra, giraffe, impala and a load of baboons in the very attractive multi stemmed doum palm. 

We also started getting our eyes into the bird life and saw grey headed kingfishers, loads of different bee-eaters (white throated and blue cheeked), lilac breasted rollers, European rollers, black headed herons, shrikes, yellow pipits, a gorgeous secretary bird, ground birds such as francolins and the yellow throated grouse, and many raptors including the pallid harrier, kestrels, grey chanting goshawks and tawny eagles.  Just before camp, we crossed a small ford and there was a hammerkop there by a rock almost posing for us!

The camp is gorgeous.  It’s very cleverly designed so it blends into the kopje perfectly.  There is a large room for welcoming visitors and then you walk up the side of the kopje via steps and a sloping path which opens up onto a lawn area with a bar and dining area on one side and the infinity pool and sun chairs on a rocky outcrop overlooking the plains below.  Just stunning.  Our room is past the pool area and then you have to cross a slightly precarious rope and plank suspension bridge.  It’s a huge vaulted room with a thatched grass (makuti) roof.  We have a large 4 poster bed complete with mosquito net which opens out onto a deck with view of the park stretching out into the distance.  There is also an outdoor bath filled by a little waterfall affair, which we probably won’t use as there’s no shade there and it’s hot and sunny.

After settling in, we went to have lunch and realised very quickly that the food here is 5 star and there’s way too much of it!!  At this point, we all felt weary so went for snoozes before meeting at 4pm for afternoon tea followed by the afternoon game drive at 4.30pm.

On the afternoon game drive, we saw the elusive dik diks and were also taken to a hippo pool where we could just see the hippo down the river and in front of us trails of bubbles and the occasional set of nostrils coming up for air. After a rather delightful sun downer, we came back to camp and were lucky to see a stately goliath heron in the dusk.

After a delicious dinner served by candle light on the lawn, we retired to our room for the night.  Unfortunately, the opening mechanism for our door broke so C had to go and get some help to break into our room!!!  A minor inconvenience.  The maintenance chap had to scramble around the precarious rocks to get onto our decking and into our room – rather him than me .... especially in the dark.