Report 3
Hi All,
My goodness, what a day!!(Again)
This morning we set off early at 7 o’clock, so that we could go to Nairobi National Park, which is an open area out in the wilderness, where there are lots of animals (apparently!!!), although we didn’t see too many during our visit of 3 hours. However, we did see some Giraffes, Eland and Oryx.
We also saw some giant ants, which are about as big as a thumb nail. They were crossing the pathway, in a long line. Also, we learnt that if any of the ants die on their journey, the others will pick them up and carry them, then if they reach an area where they need to build a bridge to cross, they will use the dead ants as building blocks, so they can make a bridge and cross! We also saw lots of beautiful birds too. The birds here are very colourful, with bright blues, reds, greens and oranges.
We then left the park and went off to a lodge for our lunch, where we had sandwiches and chips!
After lunch we went to a place called Safari Walk, which is a park that has been specially designed for animals who may have been injured out in the wild, so the park rescues them and looks after them until they can be released again into the wild, or sometimes the park rangers may decide that it is better for them never to be released again, because it would be unsafe for them, as they would not be able to look after themselves.
The animals have shelters where they can sleep and where they eat their food, but they also have very big open areas where they can exercise and play and roam freely, without being in any danger. This was a lovely park where we saw lots of beautiful animals and also some unusual animuals. We saw a white zebra!! This looks like a normal black and white zebra, but the black stripes are very faded, so it looks more white, therefore giving it the name white zebra.
We saw gazelles, buffalo, giant tortoise, oryx, eland, crocodiles, a baby Columbus monkey with it’s mother. We also saw a lion with two lionesses, it is surprising how big these beautiful big cats are.
We also saw a leopard here, but at the moment this was in a pen where it wasn’t allowed to have too much space to roam free, as it was captured two weeks ago and the park rangers are in the process of trying to tame the leopard so that it doesn’t escape. This leopard was a special leopard, it has been in the news over here, because it had escaped from the wilderness and was found in the town of Nairobi, among where there are lots of flats. It was found jumping from one flat to another, and was attacking the people, although it didn’t hurt anyone too badly. So, luckily it was caught and now it is being looked after.
In this park, there is another animal with a very special story, which we were very lucky to see. Here is an Oryx, (which is an animal similar to an antelope), when it was born, it lost it’s mother and a lioness decided to look after it, which is very unusual as normally this is an animal that a lion would hunt and eat! It looked after it for two months and now the Oryx is kept at this park, because they feel it is too special to be in the wilderness.
We then had a very, very exciting experience. We were walking to the area where there are two cheetahs, a male and a female. As we were the only people in the park at the time, the park ranger invited Dawn and Lisa into the area where the cheetahs were, so we could stroke and cuddle the female cheetah.
This is extremely rare, normally cheetahs are attacking animals, and it would be very dangerous for us to go into the area, but these two cheetahs, the female called Milo and the male called Mr Nice had been found in the wilderness when they were two weeks old, without their mother, so they had been rescued and raised by the park rangers, so the cheetahs thought that the park rangers were their parents and were very friendly.
We were very excited to be able to cuddle Milo, and she really enjoyed it, she didn’t want us to leave and placed her head on Dawn’s knee. The park ranger wondered if Milo wanted to play, so got a toy for her, but Milo preferred to have cuddles, it was lovely!
Bye for now
Dawn & Lisa