Kenya Trip Report
(13/2/2002 – 27/2/2002)
Peter Jones and Kathleen Lockyer
Introduction:
This was our first trip to Africa, and after many hours of research we decided to go to Kenya due to it's large number of National parks and variety of game and birds. We visited the Mara Game Reserve on an air safari booked with gamewatchers.com, then on our return to Nairobi hired a car and visited the Rift Valley and Kakamega by ourselves.
Click here for Photo gallery from Kenya
General information:
Flight: Direct from Heathrow with British Airways.
Car Hire: With Avis. Quite expensive, we had a very poor quality car that broke down within a day, also the replacement broke down towards the end of the holiday. The Avis hire car desk at Nairobi Airport was the one stressful experience of the holiday as they persistently tried to overcharge us, and duplicate costs that we had already paid for in advance. The whole experience was a farce that took an hour at the beginning and end of the hire to resolve.
Accommodation: Accommodation was fairly modest in most places, and this was all part of the experience. The Kunste Hotel at Nakuru was the most basic but at 1/10th of the price of the Lion Hill Lodge we were happy!
Kakamega's Rondo retreat was the most up market accommodation we had, and was out of this world!
Getting by in Kenya: The Air Safari was a very relaxing experience, and thoroughly enjoyable. Our own tour of the rift valley was difficult, but we were expecting this. The car breakdown problems were fortunately resolved without losing too much time (one wait of 5 hours for a replacement vehicle was at the entrance to Hell's Gate NP, and was probably one of the nicer places to be stranded at!).
Roads in Kenya are very poor quality and journey times were extended. In particular the journey from Nakuru to Kakamega took the best part of a day. The last few kilometres were along almost undriveable roads, but we got there by driving at walking pace along the track.
Road signs are often missing or not accurate, and our GPS (Garmin Emap ) was very useful and prevented us getting seriously lost on at least two occasions.
The Sites
Mara: This was a guided safari based at Mara River Camp. The game drives were excellent as our guide had a brilliant knowledge of the local wildlife, and found us plenty of game. He was also happy to go on minor diversions for any bird species that we wanted a closer look at. E.g. Jackson's Widowbird, Bateleur, Saddle Billed Stork, Secretary Bird, Crowned Crane.
The area round the Lodge was good for Hippos, and a good variety of bird species. There was also a Silver Galago visiting the dining area each night.
Lake Naivasha: the Fish Eagle Inn was our destination for 3 days, and we had lots of fun exploring Hell's Gate, Crescent Island, and Elsamere (Retirement home of Joy Adamson). Highlights were Verreaux's Eagle at Hell's Gate, stalking Giraffe on foot on Crescent Island, and a large number of water birds on Lake Naivasha.
Kakamega Forest: An Excellent Tropical forest with superb abundance of Birds. Highlights for us were Great Blue Turaco, Ross's Turaco, and many others.
Nakuru National Park: An Enjoyable end to the holiday was three days spent here, although by the last day we were struggling to see any new species. The Flamingoes on the lake was impressive to say the least.
Nairobi Giraffe Centre: Our day in Nairobi prior to going on Safari was spent around the hotel, then an afternoon trip to the Giraffe Centre. This was a super little place with a nice walk round the adjacent scrub and forest adding a few nice species to our haul.
The Birds:
217 Species were seen in the two weeks. We were very happy with this total as the majority of species were found ourselves with no birdwatching guide. We did hire a guide at Kakamega, and he added about 20 species to our total that we would not have found ourselves. Also, with the photography and Mammals always present, a lot of time was spent not birdwatching.
We did find that identifying species was fairly straightforward in Kenya, apart from the Cisticolas that went largely unidentified. The most difficult area was Kakamega Forest were views were typically brief.
The Mammals:
32 Species of Mammals were seen, most with excellent views, and photo opportunities. Of the "Big Five" only Leopard eluded us despite the last two days of the holiday searching in Nakuru for one.
The Mara and Nakuru were best for the Larger game species of Elephant, Lion, Rhino, Giraffe etc. Other species were seen at Hell's Gate and Crescent Island in the Naivasha Area.
Kakamega was good for Monkey Species with Blue and Red Tailed Both seen well.
Systematic List
List of all Birds Seen on trip
List of all Mammals Seen on trip