2/3 OCTOBER 2011

LAKE NAVAISHA

Where's Wally now?

Easy matatu ride this morning to arrive in the town of Navaisha, walk a couple of blocks to the next taxi park and I’m the lucky last passenger to fill a matatu going to the Lake. Getting dropped right at the driveway of Fishermans Camp, I rent a self contained banda for Ksh1300 a night – but prices go sky high up on Fri and Sat nights to Ksh4000!! Must be a real party place here of a weekend! I’m assured there are no overland trucks booked in and check out my new digs to decide that this is a lovely lakeside place with green lawns with plenty of birdies and very relaxing in the sunshine. Dropping my pack inside, I’m soon back at the main road again within half an hour to travel further west towards Crater Lake Game Sanctuary. Arriving at the small village of Kongoni I take a boda boda along the last 5kms on a very bad road. I take Josh’s telephone number to call him when I am ready to return, pay my US$25 and I’m soon walking a path past giraffe and zebra and feeling a little surreal. There is a fab lookout over the Crater Lake and walking further down I arrive at the Crater Lake Tented Camp – very flash!

I still love flamingos

I set out to walk the lake perimeter after I am assured by staff that it’s ok. The track is muddy and vaguely passable until I hear a familiar sound that makes me check out the lake very carefully – yep there’s a hippo submerged by the shore in the lake waters. Because I cannot see this hippo’s friends or family, after a bit of internal debate I return toute suite to the camp, where they ask me how I enjoyed my walk. I tell them that I came back because of the hippo and they laughingly reply that they didn’t tell me about the hippo in case I got scared – it is a baby hippo and there is only one!  If they had of told me, I could have continued walking….Oh well, the track was very muddy after recent rains so I’m happy to enjoy a yum salad on the camp’s restaurant pontoon on the lake watching their flamingos – wonderfully relaxing gently floating on the lake.

Sign says it all really

Soon enough I guess its time to head back up to the crater lip but on the way get an offer to join a BRAND SPANKING NEW Range Rover to ‘game drive’ here. Of course I graciously accept and then find I am being driven by a 16 year old boy! HE’s a good driver though – but I’m sure a car like this could drive itself – and my invitee is the Hotel Manager entertaining his friend and her son who is receiving his education in London. We get to see zebra, antelope, giraffe and buffalo but not the leopards or the snake! L

Back to the camp and my bodaboda awaits me along with the bad road which is now very muddy with plenty of puddles. Josh says there has been a lot of rain – but I saw very little fall in the crater. He wants to take me right back to Fishermans but I am happy to try for a matatu from the village back along the only road – South Moi Lake Road. Josh is very discouraging saying that after lunch there are few transports but hey, when we get back to the village, there is a matatu waiting. We gradually fill up and soon enough I get dropped at Elsamere - Joy (author of Born Free) and George Adamson’s home here in Kenya. I watch a DVD documenting Joy Adamson’s life which was really quite interesting, although by the end when she claims she is channelling the spirit of Elsa it gets a bit strange.

Read the bus carefully

I am joined by Clare who is staying here and together we partake of the ‘high tea’ that isn’t very high but very acceptable none the less, especially when we get chatting for ages. Clare was originally born in Zimbabwe and now hails from the Jersey Islands, spending her time globetrotting to spend time with her adult children living around the world, including a daughter in Coburg, Melbourne. We have a great chin wag on the lawns of Elsamere, overlooking the Lake Navaisha and before I know it, the blokes here want to close the museum and I haven’t seen it yet. Claire and I part ways swapping emails with promises to catch up in Melbourne early next year, I check out the museum – NOTE TO TERRY; I’m sure Joy Adamson had more dust catchers than I have! As the day slowly ends, I walk the few kilometres back to FIshermans camp and get a hire bicycle sorted in anticipation of a ride out to Hells Gate NP early tomorrow.

Bad bad water hyacinth

Entering the camp restaurant, which is very laidback, I meet a lovely couple: Ian and Georgie - we chat, drink beers, eat pizzas and get on like houses on fire! Georgie however, warns me about the Hells Gate lower gorge walk which they completed today but she was very frightened the whole time – not Ian, he used to be a mountain climber. Shaun, the owner introduces himself to us and talk moves to the water hyacinth which is an absolute ecological disaster happening here at the lake. Locals say that the wind blows it away, and so it does except for the fact that the stuff is doubling and doubling on the lake where they can’t see it and on days when the wind blows it back they can’t even get boats out on the lake. As much as I’m tempted (I think we all were) to keep chatting and drinking those lovely cold Tuskers all night, I know I don’t want a hangover tomorrow, so we bid adieu.

I’m up and gone by 7am for the 5km cycle to the Hells Gate NP turn off followed by another 2km to the gates. By now I have realised that even though there are gears on this bike, the connecting cable has missing – so it’s a one speed bike arggh. Arriving at Elsa Gate, paying US$25 entry PLUS Ksh1000 bicycle charge I am first in for the day! 1Km in is Fischers Tower, a 25m high volcanic column named after a german explorer who reached here in 1882, trying to find a way from Mombasa to Lake Victoria.

HE was stopped by the Maasai who literally slaughtered his travel plans. Another 7km cycling I have the park all on my own, past zebras, giraffe, warthog and antelope to eventually arrive at the Rangers office and Central Tower.  I am allotted a guide for the gorge walk, we start walking and soon he is clambering down a short cliff towards an empty river bed. I can see the path then heads straight up another sheer cliff again – I don’t really think I want to do this. HE is very encouraging but I have decided that I really cannot be bothered – a gorge is a gorge is a gorge and I am none too keen to exhaust myself when I still have another 15 kms to cycle back. He’s disappointed that he doesn’t get his 500 shillings and I am very happy to sit and read the paper in gorgeous surroundings. What I wuss I can be some days!

Hells Gate National Park

As more tourists start to arrive, the park truck turns up so I ask if it’s going back to the Elsa Gate – yes and my mate from the office is more than happy for me to get a lift. Woo hoo – that’s 8 kms of cycling I have escaped! From the park gate I walk half the way back because my muscle spasms are killing me. I eventually arrive back to Fishermans Camp and thankfully return the bike in time for a leisurely crayfish salad lunch. But these crayfish are very tiny – I think they could really be called a freshwater shrimp but the salad is tasty anyway. Relaxing by lake I await the sun to pass its zenith before I venture back onto the highway to take another matatu back towards town to visit the Elmateita Weavers who are very well known in these parts.

Weaving papyrus blinds

They also weave blinds using papyrus which make a very attractive blind compared to a boring old bamboo blind. I make a couple of small purchases, including one that I hope Kyle will like and head back to the lake for a another lovely relaxing evening by the fire, dining on tourist food with cold beers watching hippos investigating the electric fencing and listening to froggies singing all night. Aahhhhh, all is well with the world, I am sure..

FACT: Naivasha was one of the first areas to be settled by whites and was a favourite haunt during the 1930s. The lake itself has ebbed and flowed over the years and currently covers 170sq km albeit with very low water levels and being overrun with the invasive water hyacinth. A freshwater lake, as opposed to the Rift Valley’s soda lakes, the water here is used extensively for irrigation to support a major cut flower industry.

This sign makes me laugh

The huge hot houses line the road all massively fenced and housing supplied by companies for the workers is of very low standard. As many prospective workers continue to flock to the area, they end up swelling the burgeoning ranks of the poor and unemployed here. Not an altogether great vibe for the communities here.