BURNING BUSH IN NAKURU

I suppose trying to book flights to Mombasa on Wednesday for the half-term weekend was always a bad idea. But every cloud... as they say. We finally ended up going to Nakuru National Park, driving up on Thursday from Nairobi for a two-night stay that turned out to be just as good, if not better, than our memories of our first trip to Kenya's soothing, soporific Indian Ocean coast.
The park was perfect for our demanding little 'uns. Three hours in the car is about their limit, and that's even if there are rhinos snorting, giraffes gambolling and baboons scratching right in front of them, plus an endless supply of lollies of course. Nakuru can be easily split up into child-sized bites. There was so much to see straight away, from the baboons that climbed onto our Landrover as we sipped a welcome coffee at the main gate after our drive from Nairobi (singing Mamma Mia all the way!), to the rhinos ambling into view, well everywhere really. We stayed at Sarova Lion Hill lodge in a small but cosy room with a massive double-bed, a daybed and a cot. The staff were great with our children and there were highchairs! The buffet meals were very good and in the evening, there was a performance of traditional dancing around the fire and under the stars. Our two were google-eyed with delight. Our eldest was invited out to dance and, with the unflappable calm of a five-year-old, joined in, waving the ceremonial stick with vigour. I wish I could say the same of her mother who realised just how long it had been since she danced, and knew that it showed. The park has a great range of landscapes from the wetlands where great crested cranes tiptoed haughtily among the crude baboons and the leave-me-alone-I'm-big-and-grumpy buffalo, to savannas crackling under the fierce sun where every tussock looked like it might be hiding a leopard, to the salt-rimmed lake itself, packed with question-mark pink flamingos and gargantuan pelicans. We got out of the car at the lake (all except our youngest who had had her fill of Africa's wonders and was snoozing mouth-open in her carseat). Our eldest was thrilled, walking along the feather-strewn shore, filming the flamingos -- or at least pointing the camera in their general direction -- and clambering onto the top of the Landrover for a better view. It was magical as the sun slid lower, gilding the rippling lake and the acacia-studded land behind. There are some marvellous viewpoints in the park too, Baboon Cliffs is just one. And back at Lion Hill, the gardens were full of twittering birds, swooping to feed at the bird tables or the human tables!
We did get a bit worried on day two though as we hung out at the lodge's pool after lunch (the price for getting the girls back in the car for an afternoon tour). A gloomy, forbidding cloud of smoke rose from the other side of the hill. It was clearly a forest fire, and at one point ash was falling on our skin as we peered curiously skywards, wondering if we should check with reception/get in our car and vamoose/continue to chill. But the smoke faded and inertia won out. Later, someone called us to tell us there was a fire in Nakuru, and on our way back from some more rhino-spotting that afternoon, we suddenly came upon scores of soldiers sitting on the side of the road around a frankly rather dilapidated-looking fire truck. They appeared quite calm though and there was no sign of a fire at that stage. It did make us wonder though if there really were any big cats in the park....... (we didn't see any, but since then friends have assured us they have seen leopards, even the tree-climbing kind, so our scepticism seems unwarranted). Next day as we left through Lanet gate, we found the source of the smoke. Charred trees stretched all the way from the top of the hill down to the gate. It was an eerie landscape of still smoking ash and twisted trunks -- a brutal reminder of how what seemed timeless and immutable was very finite and fragile.
On the way back to Nairobi from Naivasha after lunch at the Country Club (food not great but who cares about food when there is a massive lawn for cranky, crimped girls to run around on, and a swimming pool), we took the lower road. I have to admit I hate it. I am convinced we are going to die every time I see a blundering truck with more revs than sense try to overtake another belching behemoth. As we crept up the hill that signals the end of my personal hell, we saw a large container truck lying half way down the slope, having smashed through the thin fence between the road and the Rift Valley below. No sign of the cabin. A cautionary, sad sight which will really soothe my nerves next time we take that road!