Great Rift Overland Expedition : 9 Nights/10 Days

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Tour Type - Overland Safaris, Destination - Kenya Tour Summary Day 1 We leave the capital of Kenya, Nairobi and descend into the Great Rift Valley, stopping at the lookouts with some amazing views at the bottom of the rift we pull into Fishermen’s Camp under the trees on the shore of Lake Naivasha. The camp has a good bar restaurant overlooking the lake and good facilities. Day 2 Lake Naivasha is well known for its hippo population that comes ashore every night to graze. The camp is protected by a deep trench to stop the hippos coming too close. Close by is Hell’s Gate National Park where you can hire bikes to take you around the park and see the herds of zebra, buffalo, hartebeest and gazelle. There is some spectacular scenery here, red cliffs, grassy plains and rock towers made of hardened lava, the remains of ancient volcanoes. It’s a hard ride but well worth it, or you do want you can spend the day on the lake shore, spotting the rich variety of African birds. There are more species of birds on this one lake that there are in the whole of the UK. Also on the lake is Elsamere, once the home of Joy Adamson and Elsa the lion of ‘Born Free’ fame. Elsamere is now the centre of the Born Free Foundation and you can find out more about their work, see the rare Colobus monkeys and take afternoon tea in the gardens. Day 3 Lake Nakuru National Park is only 60 kilometres across the valley floor. It has the largest herd of black rhino in East Africa, over a million pink flamingos (who are part time residents) and more than 400 other bird species. ‘Nakuru’ means ‘place of the waterbuck’ in Swahili and these antelope abound in the park as well as impala, buffalo and warthog. The lions here unusually often sit in the lower branches of trees. The camp is a simple site in the south of the park, set beside a waterfall. Day 4 Kembu Camp. Leaving Lake Nakuru after a morning game drive and visiting Nakuru town, we spend the afternoon at this farm campsite giving you time to relax in the afternoon. The camp has good facilities and a bar restaurant. TANZANIA Day 5 We climb out of the Rift Valley, up to cool tea plantations before descending to camp on the shores of the largest lake in Africa - Lake Victoria. We enter Tanzania and spend the night either at Speke Camp or in a hotel in Tereme town. The camp has good facilities and a bar restaurant or the hotel is some distance from any star. Day 6 Serengeti National Park must be one of Africa’s most famous and justifiably so. The sweeping plains evoke a picture of East Africa that most people hold in their minds and they are rarely disappointed when confronted with the real thing. We enter the park thru the western corridor, which starts near the lake and is on the migration rout of the wildebeest in September. We are likely to see zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, impala, buffalo, elephant and of course the big cats - lion, cheetah and if we’re lucky, leopard. The camp is a simple site in the middle of the park, among the animals. Day 7 Ngorongoro Crater is a collapsed, extinct volcano, thousands of years old and now supporting a wide range of animals. We take Land Rovers with a guide to the heart of the crater to see the game. It’s an excellent place for a game drive as in a small area there is a high concentration of animals, which are not afraid of vehicles. The camp is a simple site set beautifully on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater, can be very cool at night. We normally pop into the nearby lodges also on the rim of the crater for a view and a drink. Day 8 Dropping down from the Crater we spend the night among the Mbulu people in the camp at the edge of Karatu town.The camp has good facilities and a bar restaurant. Day 9 We re-cross the floor of the Rift Valley to Arusha, the northern capital of Tanzania, stopping in town to change money and have a break before heading out of town to the Lake Duluti, a small volcanic lake nestled in a forest reserve.The camp has good facilities and a bar with simple restaurant on the lake. Day 10 Transit back to Nairobi by the local shuttle or travel on to climb Kilimanjaro.


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