We have just spent the last two nights at Nakuru Lodge where there is an enormous amount of bird life and all of the recognized animals except for elephant. The national park is relatively small, only about 180 square kilometers, of which about 25 square kms are taken up by the lake. Nakuru means “Dust or Dusty Place” in the Maasai language.
Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley soda lakes at an elevation of 1754 m above sea level. It lies to the south of the large town of Nakuru, in the rift valley of Kenya. The lake has an abundance of algae which attracts a vast quantity of flamingos that famously line the shore. Other birds also flourish in the area, as do warthogs, baboons and other large mammals. Black and white rhinos have also been introduced for protection in this park.
The lodge there is the only accommodation inside the park and it is much bigger and les personal than the one we enjoyed at Samburu. Our room was a long way from the dining area and bar and it was a considerable walk every time we went for a meal.
There was a wonderful view down to the lake which was a couple of kilometers away. The flat savanah landscape is rather beautiful and at one place where we saw a herd of gazelles grazing on the grass under the canopy of the trees. It was rather idyllic. It’s really not as serene as that because behind the scenes there are always lion lurking. Apparently a couple of them attacked an old buffalo not far from the lodge yesterday morning. We caught a glimpse of a lion and a couple of cubs in the bushes beside the road at one place on our drive around the lake.
We stood by the lake for a good few hours watching the birds. It was one of the rare places that we were able to get out of our vehicles. It was quite smelly, as most bird colonies are, and we were fascinated by the thousands of pink flamingos and pelicans. In flight. The pelicans were incredibly graceful and gave the impression of large aircraft gliding in for a touch down as they flew. Every now and then, something would cause them to move along the shoreline which they did in en masse. The flamingos stayed about one hundred metres out in the water as a means of protection from predators.
As I’m typing this, we are now driving on a very rough road towards the Fig Tree Camp in the Massai Mara for the next stage of our expedition. It’s too hard to type on this road. . . .
Well, we have now reached a main road. For the last hour, we have been driving along a a series of tracks beside a secondary road. The road itself was too rough to drive on, so we have been taking a series of tracks on either side. Sometimes they resembled a goat track, and at other times a buffalo wallow – clearly, it is essential for us to be in these four wheel drive vehicles.
Hi, there, are the pelicans the same species as at Lake Eyre, or the Coorong? Beautiful photos and Ditto re Pamela’s comments
I love how you appear to be experimenting with your photography Bruce. There is a sense of impressionist ‘painting’ in some of shots above. And the photo of the gazelles under the trees fascinates me- the height of the trees but still Iidyllic. the buffallo however I wouldn’t like to meet with face to face like you achieved in this shot.
Sorry I accidentyally deleted part of my comment which should have read…..’the height iof the trees and still able to recognise the gazelles underneath. It reminded me somehat of a Turner ‘palette. It is indeed idyllic.’