It’s sad to be leaving this great continent. We have only seen a snippet of what it has to offer. I know we will visit again. We met a family today who are off to Rwanda to see the gorillas!
We will remember all the great safari drives and our many lucky sightings, the spectacular Victoria Falls, Cape Town and such things as diving with the Great White Sharks, the view of and from Table Mountain.
I won’t forget the fact that, even though Kenya is well known for producing good coffee, there was nothing good about the scarce number of coffees I had.
I won’t forget the tipping fiasco. Everyone wants a tip. The guides, the porters, the waiters. Some lodges and hotels have a box for “tips” that’s the size of two shoe boxes!
I won’t forget how slow the trucks can go. Why can’t African trucks go as fast as they do in Australia?
I won’t forget that the Americans have lost the mantle of world’s worst tourist. That now belongs to the Chinese, who haven’t worked out they are not the only people in the world.
I won’t forget how much I love my iPad! It has my photos, my books to read, games for the boys, the net for the world, google maps so we know where we are, email so we can stay in touch, and, of course, our blog.
I won’t forget the many guides we’ve had to show us their world. Each one does his job because he loves it and has a genuine love of the wild life. They were as excited as we were each time we found something to see.
My favourite for the trip: our time in Chobe National Reserve, staying at Muchenje Lodge. The sightings were second to none, especially the elephants, and the friendly hosts made it a brilliant stay.
Fergus and Harry vote for the same thing: seeing the leopard and her two cubs. Even though it only lasted 30 seconds, it was a privilege to see these wild cats.
And John: his is visiting Cape Town and all that we saw and did there.

The boys did a count tonight:
Slept in 14 different beds
Visited 5 countries
Flown on 10 aeroplanes and one helicopter
Been on 9 boats
Travelled in 15 cars or buses
Been swimming in 7 pools, one beach and one dive
And ridden one Segway

We look forward to seeing everyone who has read our travel blog.
Bridget

William called today a “late start” at 7.30am. We left Lion Hill Lodge and spent an hour or so on our last safari drive to the Reserve exit. There was nothing to add to our list of sightings, we have certainly achieved all our dreams.
We headed south east towards Nairobi and stopped off at Lake Naivasha where we took a small boat out to an island. It’s the one where they filmed for the movie “Out of Africa”. They brought in the zebra, wildebeest, giraffes and more just to make the movie, and the animals are still there. You can walk around amongst them. The bird life on the lake is great to watch. We saw a kingfisher dive in and catch a fish, the try to swallow it. There were some hippos wallowing in the shallows, and I was glad we didn’t run into a submerged one.
We saw a baby wildebeest:

As well as a baby zebra:

And this cute giraffe:

And they were all up close and personal. Ferg said he was really happy to do the walk with the animals.

We drove on through the Rift Valley where the world’s best marathon runners are bred, and the mist turned to smog as we got closer to the big smoke.
We have arrived at the hotel in Nairobi where we stay tonight before the long trek home. The hotel is adjacent to the Nairobi National Reserve, right in the city. We can’t see any animals because it is the season of plenty, and they are way out of view feasting on the plains.

Right up there with reaching geographical extremes, like the Cape of Good Hope, is crossing the equator.
Kenya straddles the equator, and if you care to google-map Lake Nakaru, you’ll see we are just about there. But not quite!
John’s watch gizmo, that I have previously described, which is the reason for much attention to our elevation, also gives us our latitude and longitude coordinates.

And here we are less than one degree from the equator. It’s kind of like nearly getting 100% for an exam result, or turning back at Hillary’s Step on Everest. Well, okay, that might be an exaggeration.
Anyway, it’s damn close.

After such an amazing morning, the boys had a swim to cool down. I did some blogging and then it was time to head off to the lookout on the cliffs, over Lake Nakaru. As we drove past the lake edge, we saw flocks of pelicans, and heaps of ibis, both white and black, and many different storks. And then, at the waters’ edge, is a flock of flamingos! Who said they’d all vacated the lake? Although it wasn’t the spectacle we had hoped for, they were pretty impressive.

There were two hippos hanging out with the pelicans. They were trotting around and quite hilarious.

We went up to the lookout and could see the rising lake. It’s at a record peak height, and William tells us we would normally drive at least another 800m into the lake on a road we can’t see for water.
On the way back, we stop and watch a bachelor herd of impala having duels, as they try to become the dominant one.

As we go back past the flamingos, they take flight, and I can only imagine what it would be like if there were thousands of them here.

Then we see the baboons again, as they head off to bed. They are so fascinating to watch. We took a lot of video here.

We were nearly back at the lodge when we saw a black rhino in the bush. The black rhino is the one that we saw at a large distance from the road earlier today. We stopped and watched as it found its way to the road, only to see that it had a baby with it! Given the declining population of these animals, it was a treat to see a baby trotting along behind mum. Could we possibly have any more lucky moments?
Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, but the light was fading fast.

All in all, it was another good day! (not that we’ve had any bad ones)

We headed out today full of hope and anticipation for a full dance card. We have seen so many animals and birds, great flora, magnificent trees. But there are two things we need to make the trip complete: a leopard and a rhinoceros. Is today the day?
We had been out for at least an hour, enjoying the Reserve. The tracks are smooth (on the whole) and you don’t feel like you’ve just got off a rocking boat when you get home, like we did in the Mara. We saw the baboons descending from the trees, a group of cuddly Waterbuck antelope,

and then in the distance we saw two black rhino! They were a long way from the road, but distinctly different to the white rhino. They have small tusks, and are usually solitary. As there were two, they must have been a mating pair.

There are no boab trees in this area, nor the Masai Mara, as they only grow below 1000m, and we are currently at 1860m. But below is an acacia that is picture perfect. They look similar to the Balonite trees in the Mara.

Nearby there was a group of Rothschild Giraffes. These are endemic to this area, and have white legs.

Here’s one of the elegant African storks that abound around the lake here.

We were heading back to the lodge when we got a call on the radio that some vehicles had seen a leopard. So we raced to the spot – a narrow one lane track, already packed with cars from both directions. A log jam to behold. All cameras were pointed to a tree that was out of our view. After some argy bargy, and much slipping and sliding in the mud, everyone regrouped in a parallel track, to try and see the leopard as it crossed the dense bush. But super-guide William decided we’d leave the pack and stop about 300m down the road where the road bends round, saying the leopards would cross there. AND THEY DID! We were the only car to see them. A mother and two cubs. As they appeared from the foliage, I was speechless (I know, it’s hard to believe) and could only fumble to point the camera at them. First the mum, then the two cubs. They were spectacular. I only got one good shot as the second cub headed into the bush:

Our hearts were racing for at least an hour afterwards. Even William was excited!

So leopards – check.
We started for home, and what do you know? There’s a white rhino. It was at least 200m from us, but we sat quietly and watched, and snapped what photos we could. I think Harry took a shot every 15 seconds. The rhino slowly but surely made its way towards us. The photos got better and better. Until he actually came right up to the road and crossed just in front of the car next to us. William had his fingers on the ignition keys, ready to make a getaway.

Wow, what a morning. We still can’t get the smiles off our faces. Africa has delivered its big five and more.