Safari to Lake Nakuru

a jewel of a reserve adjacent to a fast-expanding city

Lake Nakuru is a major Rift Valley lake in the Kenya Southwest region.

At 188 square kilometres, Lake Nakuru National Park is a relatively small and fully fenced wildlife reserve, of which around a third is taken up by the lake itself.

The area is most famous for its enormous populations of flamingos, which nest along the shoreline. Depending on the season, there can be hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions of these birds on view.

The park is also renowned for its populations of rare black rhinos, white rhinos and Rothschild giraffes. Predators including lions, leopards and cheetahs are also seen with reasonable regularity.

Unfortunately the park is immediately adjacent to the major urban centre of Nakuru Town and almost completely encircled by intense agriculture, which greatly reduces any sense of wilderness and makes the place feel like something of a suburban park. It really is no longer the wonderful wilderness that it was even relatively recently.

Furthermore Lake Nakuru is an’ essential stop’ on the standard minibus circuit around Kenya, which means that the vehicle traffic can be both very heavy and tonally challenging.

We tend to recommend Lake Nakuru for inclusion in trips relatively rarely. When we do it tends to be for guests who are particularly keen birders or who are prepared to overlook the downsides in order to see this famous lake for themselves.

The core issue is that this Central Rift Area has become heavily populated and the main road is very busy. The whole run from Nairobi, past Lake Naivasha and Lake Nakuru to Lake Baringo, is really not a very pleasant experience these days.

For higher end trips we tend to stay at one of the better lodges in the Lake Naivasha area and visit Lake Nakuru on a day trip from there.

a day trip from the better lodges at Lake Naivasha