Safaris / Lake Naivasha

A leisurely two hour drive from Nairobi, you rise up and over the rim of the Great Rift valley formed of highland forests and tea estates, and suddenly the world drops away before you. The Valley falls away two thousand feet below you, as you can pick out the extinct volcanoes of Mounts Suswa, Longonot, with their dry forest growing inside the craters, and many smaller cones, like the miniature peaks of the planets of Anthony St, Epury's Little Prince.

You're never going to see the same picture of the rift valley twice, as shafts of sunlight break over rich grassland and bush, to rocky arid desert landscapes. Depending on the time of year, the vision will vary from verdant green in the rainy season to dusty ochres in the dry.

Onward and down the Rift Valley escarpment to Lake Naivasha, past Kijabe and the Kinangop, and into the long time haunt of the Maasai (Nai is the Maasai word for water, pasha is Maa for stormy or choppy). Since sequestered as the heartland of the white landed classes made famous by Hollywood's portrayal of life in early C20th Kenya, the area is now a thriving centre of Kenya's flower and cut winter vegetable trade, of tourism, and hydro-power generated from geothermal springs.

The lake is surrounded by quaint old-style lodges, with frontage down to the water, offering boating trips to see the hippos and exuberant birdlife. The Lake is a protected international site (under the Ramsar convention - named after the internationally important Iranian wetlands of Ramasar). For more serious wildlife enthusiasts, it is easily possible to notch up over a hundred and fifty different bird species in an afternoon. My favourites are the giant kingfisher (in amongst up eight other kingfisher species on the lake), the Goliath herons (in amongst the five species of heron one can see) and the African fish eagle (in amongst numerous migrating and resident raptors).

Our last stay was graced by a troop of black and white colobus feeding in the yellow fever trees by our lodge. And a short drive to the crescent island game sanctuary will give you your first exposure to wildebeest, zebra, impala, waterbuck, and gazelles.

For the adventurous, this trip may wet your appetite to seek out these less well known and rarer, the red colobus, Jackson's hartebeest and sable antelope, but that is an adventure for a different time and a different place ....

Instead sit back and marvel at how easy the first excursion into the African bush has been, and how extraordinary the colours are, and the richness of life in this watery oasis in the dry valley snaking across East Africa's valley floor.