Monday 14th May 2007 Crayfish Camp Site.
We went off on our own, exploring and came across a flower farm and went to the gate and asked to visit their geo-thermal power station. After some sweet-talking (They NEVER allow this!!) the GM agrees, and took us around himself. It was interesting to hear they get steam from 2.15Km beneath the earth and pipe the heat thus generated all around the estate to heat the roses in the tunnels. He then took us to the power station which 2,05Km deep where they extract the steam at 143deg C, at 6bar pressure, and heats pentane liquid to drive the turbines and generates 1,3MegaWatts of electricity which is all used on the farm to drive the pumps and fans and cool rooms etc. The whole place including the tunnels are computer controlled. The power station cost R100mil to set up and they hope to pay it off in 4,5 years.
We continued our drive around Lake Naivasha, unfortunately parking under some roosting cormorants to watch the flamingos and other game, and drove off with a polka spotted tent which smelled like fish!!
We found another small game reserve with water in the extinct crater lake. It’s pH11.5 is very alkoline and the Maasai name for it is ‘castrated bull’, because it is as useless, not having any fish. However the flamingoes love the spirollina algae which cause the water to be emerald green. Continuing around the lake we found commercial dairy, crop and flower farms with many pivots irrigating from the lake. Back at camp we found the rest of the group had spent the whole day in camp. The evening was spent bird-watching on the tranquil lake shore until we had to leave as the hippo wanted to come shore to graze, and we had to make way.


Sunday 13th May 2007 Crayfish Camp Site
We went through the border into Keya, with a transit visa costing US$20 each with no problems. Kenyan side looked like a young Transkei with the overgrazing causing erosion and desertification already setting in. Apart from the very potholed road we arrived at Nairobi and were amazed at how much construction was going on. Kenya is obviously a much wealthier state than Tanzania which is better than Zambia. The traffic is another thing altogether. We though Dar es Sallaam was bad. In Nairobi they were creating 4 lanes in one direction on a two-way road! Traffic approaching, just had to wait. This was a Sunday afternoon and we had never seen so many large trucks on the road, ever! We arrived at Lake Navaisha at Crayfish Camp Site.
Lake Navaisha is part of the Rift Valley Lakes 2000m above sea level and half a degree South of the equator, and very cold. The Lake is surrounded by huge Cut-flower exporting commercial farms. There are thousands and thousands of tunnels with mostly roses, carnations, lizianthus and other flowers.
Today was first day since leaving South Africa that the sun did not shine at all, all day.

Saturday 12th May 2007 Marerani
We were only allowed to stay in the crater for a maximum of 6 hours to prevent congestion and disturbance of the animals, but it was sufficient time to see everything. The crater floor is 23Km diameter and averages 600m deep from the rim, has over 20 000 grazing animals and the largest concentration of predators per Ha in the world. It didn’t disappoint us. As the animals are habituated to vehicles, we could get really close to them without disturbing their activites.
We arrived back at Barry’s place just in time to watch the rugby. Barry and Lynne had not only looked after our vehicles for us, but had spit-braaied wildebeest and warthog for us, and we all celebrated the Shark’s win that evening. Barry and Lynne still support the Sharks and listen to Radio Jakaranda all the way from SA.

Friday 11th May 2007 Gorongoza Crater Lodge
After an early hearty breakfast we set off further north into the Serengeti which means “endless plains” in Maasai. This was where the expected teaming herds of buffalo, zebra and wildebeest had migrated on their way to the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya following the grass. The continual calls from the gnus and zebras filled the air. The the radio told us about the leopard so off we wizzed to a large yellow Fever tree in which the leopard was supposed to be. It must have been funny to see 8 people sticking out of the top of the Cruiser staring at a blatently vacant tree. Within minutes there were four other vehicles with their occupants doing the same thing. Eventually I spotted the leopard in a nearby green tree, almost invisible between the leaves. It was a positive spotting and lots of jokes were thrown around about it being a painting of a leopard. Livingstone said we were lucky that we had visited the park out of season because those four other vehicles would have been 200 in a matter of minutes during peak season.
After lunch we traveled to Ngorogoro Crater Lodge which was just as spectacular as the previous hotel. Every room overlooked the whole crater floor. We were lucky to see the view because the next morning it was totally covered in mist and was drizzling and very very cold. The was a huge very welcome roaring fire in the fireplace.


Thursday 10th May 2007 Seronera Lodge
Bright and early the driver/guide “Livingstone” arrived in a Toyota Landcruiser with 8 passanger seats. We couldn’t believe, once we had set off that Landcruisers had such low power, although it had a 4.2l diesel engine!! It took us a full morning to the entrance to the Serengeti Conservation area which included Ngorogoro Crater and a huge Maasai pastural area. The Maasai cattle were allowed to graze in the conservancy and even water their cattle in the crater. The conservancy area is overgrazed, of course due to the pressure of the cattle and goats. Having had our minds geared for hot weather, being 4 degrees from the equator and having always thought that this was a hot area some of our crew only took shorts and it was unbelievably cold!!!
After the hype about Serengeti we were disappointed in the amount of game we saw. We had to make a huge paradigm shift from the usual looking FOR game to looking AT game!! All the drivers I the park are in radio contact and we were surprised to be told “Now we go to see lion/cheeah/leopard etc” We were peering through binoculars at a group of rocks for the expected cheetah which we couldn’t see there until someone turned round and it was on the other side of the vehicle in the grass with two little cubs. Then off we shot to find the ‘lion in the rocks’ and found it hiding in the bush on the rocks. Then Nev spotted a single lion in a ditch, but Livingstone wasn’t interested because he had been told there was a group of lions next to a water hole a little further. So we sped off to see those instead. Once we changed our attitude it was quite fun saying ‘what are we going to see next Livingstone?’
Finally we arrived at the lodge, a magnificent hotel built around and into the rocks on a koppie. This was pure luxury for us after having camped for two months. After a full buffet dinner we suffered from bloat.

Wednesday 9th May 2007 Meserani
We met up with the other four who had located a friend from South Africa, Barry and Lynne Bales who run a campsite 30Km outside Arusha. They have a wonderful Maasai museum and excellent snake park there, and Barry also has a workshop where he maintains the vehicles for overland safaris. Our spare wheel holder had cracked and Barry fixed it, and while talking to him we found that he had farmed at Donnybrook, and had gone to Weston!!! When he found out Nev had also gone to Weston he refused payment for the work done because Nev was also and old Weston boy. Brian and Willy had both bad experiences in Arusha when someone had broken three of their door locks while were shopping. Nothing was stolen, miraculously. Dave and Bryl went to the internet café in Arusha in the afternoon and someone started to remove their 4-wheel-drive hub while Beryl was sitting in the car!! They had taken 5 of the 7 bolts off before a policeman disturbed them.
Barry persuaded us to go on an organized safari to Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater and it would be much cheaper than doing it on our own because we had foreign registered vehicles. We reluctantly agreed and prepared to leave the next morning.US $390 each. However, it turned out for the best, as we would never have seen what we did see, and it would have cost us twice as much. on our own.

Tuesday 8th May 2007 Colobus Camp
We left Merangu with Dave and Beryl and went to Arusha National Park. We were still fascinated by the rapid contrasts of Marandgu’s Tropical flora of huge bananas, pineapples, tomatoes etc where is rained almost every day during the night and was extremely fertile and lush, and 5Km away the mealies were all shriveled from drought and there is virtually Karroo vegetation. Marangu was at 2000m above sea level, and the drought area was at 1400m.
We continued via Moshi to Arusha park and noticed mountains being’ carved out’ and on closer inspection we discovered that the local people make their own concrete blocks by carving them out of the soft red stone of the mountains for building their houses.
$110 for 24hours was the asking price to enter the reserve. We saw a lot of animals and saw our first troop of black and white colobus monkeys. They have long white hair on their backs which, combined with their white hairy tails looks like they have a snow white hairy blanket on their backs. We have subsequently seen other colobus monkeys (including a little albino baby) and they were not nearly as stunning as those in Arusha Game Reserve. We then drove up a steep rocky road to a viewing point at 2500m half way up Mt Meru, the 5th highest peak in Africa. Looking towards where Mt Kilimanjaro was covered in cloud we felt on top of the world……until we turned and looked behind us at the mountain towering another 2000m above us. Elephant buffalo and bushbuck live up there, and although 4 degrees South ie 4 deg off the equator, it was very cold. We vivisted the extict volcano in the park, a miniature Ngorogoro 3Km across with some buffalo on the crater floor.