Day 129 - 149 NAKURU to NANUKI We left the lovely campsite in Nakuru and spent a night camping in Nakuru National Park. Jilly and Gareth had fun getting to know their 35 year old Range Rover we've named Ginger (apparently Ginger was Biggles' co-pilot in the famous books of the daring world war one pilot). Driving Ginger was like driving a tank - it really is a yellow dodgem car on wheels! Lake Nakuru is a beautiful game park - it has a large soda lake with a rim of pink made up of a huge mass of flamingos. This was where Rich (who was brought up in Nairobi as a toddler) ran into the 'mud' and got stuck in his little wellie boots. He fell face down and his father had to come and pluck him out before he drowned in the so-called mud...which was actually several thousand years worth of flamingo droppings! That would have made for an interesting head stone... After seeing lots of flamingos, pelicans, gazelles, zebras, giraffe and a white rhino, we camped in a secluded spot near a dried up waterfall where we had lots of baboons and even a lone buffalo as company! We forced ourselves up at 6am the following morning to do a game drive before breakfast and were treated to the most amazing sight - two leopards crossing the road in front of our car, marking a tree then heading off into the forest. Leopards are solitary animals and it is only in the mating season that you ever see a pair. Rich and I spent our honeymoon on safari in Tanzania and Kenya and the only animals we didn't see were leopards (which we now call reopards since the Masai can't say the letter L) - so as you can imagine, we were all very excited to see two Reopards! It was made even better by going back to our camp and cooking up a huge fried breakfast - we had been recommended to a great butchers, called Gilani's, in Nakuru by other overlanders when we miles north from Kenya - and stocked up on sausages and bacon (something we really missed going through Muslim Africa!). Next up was Kericho, in the west of Kenya, an area filled with tea plantations for as far as the eye could see. We camped in the grounds of the Tea Hotel - yet another place which has "seen better days"(SBD)...there are so many places in Africa which would once have been lovely but have fallen into disrepair through what seems to be sheer laziness. One person at the hotel who wasn't lazy, however, was the gardener who insisted he sprayed our camping area to get rid of the huge number of ants. He was very proud of his 'special insect spray' which was in fact Pledge furniture polish!! The most surprising thing was, it actually worked! We looked at our maps and, happy to see thick red lines meaning tarmac (at last!) we chose the Trans African Highway route to drive to Eldoret. Now, saying this road has "SBD" is an understatement and a half...it was covered in deep potholes, often a foot deep and in fact in places there was no tarmac at all. There were hundreds old, overladen trucks trundling along whilst belching out black smoke, trying to avoid the potholes - in doing so crossing over to the wrong side of the road, undertaking and generally making it a hilarious drive! Next time we won't get so excited when we see red lines on the map! We had a spectacular drive from Eldoret to Lake Baringo, crossing the beautiful Kerio Valley. At Lake Baringo we camped at Roberts Camp, a lovely spot close to the lake which is managed by a fun Irish family. They put our trip into perspective when they told us they drove in a Land Cruiser from South Africa to Kenya with their FIVE children (where they put them we have no idea)!! They were on their way back to Ireland but fell in love with the area in Kenya and have never left. Along with their five children they also have the largest giant tortoise we have ever seen - she is approximately 100 years old! We had a lovely time at Lake Baringo, relaxing at the camp, going on a boat trip on the lake to see fish eagles diving for their catch, crocodiles and hippos and joining in the Christmas Party held for the village children. The Christmas disco quickly got new recruits from Rich and Jilly when the Robbie Williams tracks were put on. They got over 100 Kenyan children following a Saturday Night Fever dance routine! It really made their Christmas party to see us 'Mazungus' (white people) joining in and jiving to 'Millennium'! From Lake Baringo we drove some great 4x4 tracks to Rumurutti and camped at a site where they had a pet cheetah called Claudia! It was a surreal experience to stroke such a powerful creature and hear her deafening purr! There was a small datsun dog at the camp that seemed to terrify the placid cheetah with it's yapping....in fact there was not much difference between Claudia and a big domestic cat. On Christmas Eve morning we headed to Nanyuki to stock up for a Christmas Day feast...