On 25th October, after one night camping in Caroline's garden, we headed off to Lake Nakuru National Park which was about one hour's drive (30 miles) from Caroline's school. St Andrew's School Turi. As it's practically on her doorstep, Caroline explained how she was a regular visitor and knew the park like the back of her hand!
We had both already pre-paid the entry fees 65 USD for a non resident adult and 35 USD for a non resident child online and stayed at Lake Nukuru Lodge for 2 nights, for a discounted (thank you Caroline!) rate of £235.99. So this definitely was not a cheap weekend, but for this we also had full board which was handy, with only drinks being extra. Throughout our stay, we enjoyed the buffet style breakfast, lunch and dinners in the restaurant and the lovely views from the restaurant and pool.
On Saturday morning after we had arrived, we needed a rest so didn't do an early morning game drive but Caroline did have a look searching for leopards! We met her for breakfast, where Tiger astounded everyone with eating twenty slices of watermelon, had a great swim in the pool (not too cold once you got used to it!) and after lunch we headed out into the park in her 1985 Toyota Land Cruiser. Caroline told me that this was the absolute perfect vehicle for her, and she had got herself on the 'first refusal' list from a staff member who was moving on and leaving Kenya. The car certainly gained plenty of attention when we were driving around, not only in the National Park, by locals giving us a thumbs up! The Land Cruiser in the park was particularly cool as you can stand on the seats (!) with your head sticking out of the roof to see the wildlife. I was also very grateful to Caroline that as we were self-driving, I didn't have to pay for game drives or a guide. And being a regular Nakuru visitor, Caroline knows all the roads!
Our absolute highlight of our Saturday afternoon drive with Caroline was seeing four tree climbing lions at their favourite tree! There were four up in the tree and one on the ground - amazing.
On Sunday 26th October, we had a lovely breakfast followed by plenty of swimming in the pool, and lunch. Having packed our bags up already, we actually left Lake Nakuru Lodge at around 3.30pm and had a second drive on our way out where we saw some amazing rhinos!
Sunday evening, we were back to Caroline's house and our tented abode. A great opportunity to run the washing through and play with the cats! We had not really made plans on what to do until our return to Nairobi but Caroline reached out to her friends for recommendations which lead us to a wonderful place called Malu Lodge. It isn't possible to actually book online but we emailed instead and were quoted 13,500 KES per adult (£83) and 8,000 KES (£49) per child (5-12 years) per night on full board basis for a "romantic cottage" - more in the next blog post!
Door to door from the school to Malu Lodge, by Google maps it was 74 miles and was apparently about 2h 40 minutes. Had we taken a taxi we were expecting to pay 7000 KES (£43) but Caroline's son Finn kindly drove us. En route, we stopped in Nakuru town to get cash from an ATM and had lunch in a KFC (£14), and continued onwards. Fun fact: there are no McDonald's in Kenya, but there are KFC everywhere!
From Turi to Malu, it is definitely further than you would think by Google maps though as the road from the main road, A104, to the Lodge is bad (driveable in a normal saloon car, but definitely bumpy, and might be tricky if it were muddy). The sun was also setting and we didn't actually arrive until 5.45pm. As soon as we got there, we jumped out, threw the bags on the floor, took a quick selfie and I sent Finn back as soon as possible as I didn't want him driving on the bad road in the dark. I later heard that, it had taken him almost 4 hours to get back but 1 hour of that was in standstill traffic. Still, we had arrived!
Whilst this was the last time we were to see Caroline and Finn, they definitely guided our relatively budget trip through recommendations and it was just so lovely to see them. Until next time!
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