17th - Today was another long driving day as we departed Uganda to head back into Kenya. Our stop for the night was a camping ground named Kembu (Swahili for Chameleon) lodge. It was absolutely bucketing down rain, so now chameleons in sight that night.

18th - We woke early for a short drive to Lake Nakuru National Park. Neither of us had heard of this park before so we weren't expecting too much. The lake was spectacular with buffalo resting on the banks and flamingos in the water. As it was the wet season the lake was at it highest point. In the dry season when the water is low the conditions for flamingo food is better and the lake turns pink covered with flamingos.

We drove to the top of a lookout for some scenery photos. There was also lizards, hyrax and baboons to keep us entertained. One of the baboons started to come close to our van. The driver threw a rock at it to scare it away. The baboon then sat on a picnic table pretending not to care about us. As soon as our backs were turned he headed straight for the can jumping up onto the roof. Being a safari van with a pop up roof it was wide open for the baboon to enter. He didn't jump in immediately as he encountered a screaming Jess. Jess was in the front about arms length from the baboon while Ella and Jen were on the back seat trying to hide. The baboon must have been used to screams as he wasn't deterred at all and slowly started to enter the van. The driver and I heard the commotion and set about getting rid of the baboon. I hit the van to intimidate the baboon while the driver pretended to throw a rock. One of these successfully scared the baboon off the van. He almost jumped right onto my feet, which scared him even further and he ran off.

Once everyone had settled down we drive off to look for more animals. Within a few minutes Jess and I spotted something and simultaneously started yelling "LEOPARD, LEOPARD, LEOPARD!!!" The driver, probably worried we would scare it away, told us to shut up. The leopard was just wandering around with the complete composure of an animal in control of its territory. There were two large male impala charging and snorting at the leopard in an attempt to intimidate. The leopard couldn't have cared less as it snaked through the grass contemplating its next move. Every now and then the impala would get too close to the leopard, scare itself and turn around to run in terror. An impala is too quick for a leopard to catch without the element of surprise so there was never going to be a kill at this sighting. Eventually the leopard slunk off into the bushes and we continued with our drive.

Next we saw some eland, we had not seen them before, a secretary bird then a baby square lipped (white) rhino with its mum. We stopped to watch them graze for quite a while, the baby even awkwardly took a drink from the mum. Around the next corner seemed to be the giraffes domain, there was three or four resting and more grazing along with zebra.

We continued further into the park and saw an elephant off in the distance. Our excitement started to rise as we headed towards lion hill, where we would hopefully find the parks pride. And complete seeing the big five within a day. Unfortunately a park ranger was driving around letting people know that the road to lion hill was flooded and we would have to turn back.

On our way out of the park the white rhino were grazing much closer to the road. Now we really got a feel for the size of these beasts. Two of the larger ones crossed the road in between our groups vans. The rhino were almost the same size as these safari vans designed to hold 10-12 passengers.

Lake Nakuru was a huge surprise to the both of us but it is a fantastic little park. Definitely worth a visit for anyone holidaying in Kenya.

After lunch we met back up with our truck and headed off to Naivasha for our next camp-site.