Rhino Heaven
When you’ve got the horn…
Long Horn
Everyone talks about how hard it is to find leopards on safari, but what about rhinos?! I’ve been on over 500 game drives in nine different African countries, and I’ve hardly ever seen any. And that’s the main reason why I decided to visit Kicheche Laikipia—or Rhino Heaven!
Getting There
Last week, I was at Laikipia Wilderness in Kenya (see post), and I booked a road transfer to take me to Kicheche Laikipia. It was supposed to take two-and-a-half hours, but I had to change vehicles at the gate to Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where my driver had to do a bit of paperwork, so it took me around three hours door-to-door.
The Camp
I’d been to all the other Kicheche camps a few times before, but never Laikipia. However, it was pretty similar to the others in terms of the general layout and routine.
Main Area
The main area consisted of the lounge and lunch tents and a nearby public bathroom. There was no Wi-Fi—as a deliberate policy to encourage people to talk to one another!
My Tent
My tent was only a few yards away, and it had a proper bed, two sinks with hot and cold running water (if you let the tap run for long enough!) and shower and toilet cubicles—although the toilet seat didn’t stay up on its own! There was also a wardrobe unit with hangers on a rail, a desk and two comfortable chairs and two bedside tables.
As always at Kicheche camps, there was a ‘WELCOME HOME’ message spelt out in grass on my bed when I arrived, a greeting card with a picture of a rhino on the cover and a couple of towels artfully twisted up to look like swans—I think…!
The power outlets by the desk and bed included USB-A ports and UK-type plug sockets, so I didn’t need to bring an adapter. There was a Wi-Fi connection, but it was pretty slow (4.89 Mb/s download and 14.4 Mb/s upload) and kept dropping out. That wasn’t good news when I tried to teach one of my pupils online. We had to pause for 15 minutes until the internet was back up…
Daily Routine
Awkward…!
The routine was the same as at Laikipia Wilderness—and for any African safari lodge, really. The only difference was that I only ate one meal a day, which meant I had a normal lunch but no breakfast or dinner—although I did eat dinner one day and sat down with everyone (without eating) on another occasion.
0515 Wake up
0545 Mango lassi and chat with Naftali
0600-1130 Game drive with Simon
1300-1330 Lunch in the Lunch Tent
1600-1930 Game drive with Simon
1930-2000 Drinks around the campfire
2000-2100 Dinner in the main area (although I mostly skipped it)
2200 Bed
There were a few exceptions to the timings, the main one being that we extended one of the afternoon game drives into a night drive until 2030 or so. We didn’t see much, so I just had a hot chocolate while Simon explained all the constellations to me. The cool thing about Ol Pejeta is that it’s right on the Equator, so you can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross!
Food and Drink
Wherever you go on safari, you’ll never get a better mango lassi than at Kicheche Laikipia! I had one every morning before going out on my first game drive, and it was the highlight of my day. It was so good, in fact, that a couple of the staff started having one!
The food and drink have always been pretty good at the Kicheche camps. The first one I visited was Bush Camp, which was managed by a couple called Darren and Emma who used to run a restaurant in Mombasa, so they certainly knew what they were doing! A particular highlight was the bread. We had different ones every day, including sun-dried tomato rolls, garlic bread and cheese rolls.
Kicheche Laikipia doesn’t quite match those high standards, but everything was beautifully presented, and there were quite a few dishes I really enjoyed, including most of the cold soups, a beef Wellington and a delicious banoffee pie. They also served steak one night, which would usually have been a highlight, but it was thin, dry and overcooked. Oh, well…
My usual routine involved my morning lassi and then a three-course meal in the Lunch Tent, consisting usually of soup, a meat dish, salads and dessert—all washed down with a glass of prosecco. After the evening game drive, I sometimes had drinks around the campfire with the other guests before sitting down to dinner in the main area.
My only problem with the Kicheche way of doing things is that they segregate the guests at mealtimes. I’m used to communal dining, and as I’m always on my own, I enjoy meeting people over lunch or dinner.
That wasn’t the default arrangement, so I had to push a couple of times to be seated with the other guests. To be fair, that wasn’t a problem, and I ended up enjoying a very nice dinner with Anita, Greg, Polina and her parents.
However, the usual arrangement is that I had to eat with a staff member—which is bizarre if you think about it. How many times when dining alone at a local restaurant do you end up having dinner with the manager…?!
Staff
The first person I met when I arrived by car from Laikipia Wilderness was Anita, the manager. She was a lovely lady and very good company, so it’s a great shame she’s moving on.
She gave me the usual briefing and told me the names of most of the staff:
Manager: Anita (handing over to Anne)
Assistant Manager: Naftali
Guide: Simon
Waitress: Faith
Waiter: Juma
Room Steward: Agnes
Ascari: Jack
etc, etc…
As at Laikipia Wilderness, the name of my guide was Simon, and he took charge of all my game drives. He spoke pretty good English, which helped, and it was easy spending time with him. He also did a good job pointing out all the bird species we saw as we were driving along.
Typically for Kicheche and safari lodges in general, the other staff were all friendly and helpful. Nothing was too much trouble, and everything I asked for was attended to almost immediately.
To take a small example, Agnes took me to my tent and told me I had to write down all my items of clothing on a list before leaving them in the laundry basket, but Anita let me off. Score another point for Kicheche customer service!
My only criticism was that the left hand sometimes didn’t know what the right hand was doing. I was asked three times what time I wanted to be collected from my tent in the morning and three more times what drinks I wanted for my sundowners!
Guests
Apart from Greg and Polina and a woman travelling with her mother and daughter, I’m afraid I didn’t really get a chance to talk to any of the other guests. That was partly due to the lunchtime seating arrangements and partly due to the fact that I was very busy.
I do try to make time to socialise when I’m on safari, but I generally have to work around 16 hours a day, either going out on game drives or rating my photos. In addition, I do a daily social media blast that takes an hour or more, and I have to write weekly blog posts (like this one) and monthly newsletters.
That doesn’t leave much time for getting to know people, especially when I’m not sharing a vehicle on game drives, and that’s a shame. I always enjoy meeting new people on safari. They tend to be intelligent, successful and interested in wildlife and/or photography, and I’ve met some fabulous individuals over the years.
Not this time, though…
Wildlife
Horns Aplenty
The main reason I go to Kicheche is for the cheetahs. On my first visit in 2018, I saw five cheetah kills in a week, and in three subsequent visits, I’ve never failed to see at least one. However, Kicheche Laikipia doesn’t have many cheetahs, and I was mostly there for the rhinos (see above).
The camp is in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where there are over 165 critically endangered eastern black rhinos and 44 southern whites. It’s also home to the last two remaining northern white rhinos, which have their own fenced-off area. Viewing is by appointment only, and you have to pay an entrance fee of $70 per person—although I wasn’t given the option to do that.
My first experience of seeing the rhinos left me surprised and delighted. On my very first game drive, we saw a big male black rhino called Tumaini (‘Hope’) with a male and female and then a female (Ninji) with a calf—although I frightened her away by coughing too loudly! It was great to be able to photograph all these black and white rhinos on an open plain in the late afternoon sunshine. There were so many of them, and they had nowhere else to go. What a joy! I must’ve been in a good mood as I ended up doing all the talking…
The only dodgy moment came when we were charged by a black rhino mother and her calf. Initially, I was too busy making a diary entry to notice, but I eventually woke up and got a couple of decent shots. However, Simon just sat there and didn’t even start the engine! Apparently, that’s the best way to make them back off. If you run, they’ll follow you. I just wish I’d known that beforehand…!
To be fair, I didn’t manage to take many good pictures of the rhinos during the week, but the weather was good enough to do something I always enjoy, which is to take sunrise and sunset silhouettes.
Silhouettes
Silhouettes of animals on the horizon at sunrise and sunset can make stunning images, but they’re not that easy to capture. The first job is to find a treeless plain with a camber that slopes up to the rising or setting sun (ie in the east and west, respectively). The camber (or convexity) helps you place the animal on the horizon and therefore show the sky under its belly. It also helps if the grass is not too long.
Even if you manage to find a good spot, of course, there’s no guarantee that the weather or the animals will cooperate! Sometimes, there are too many clouds or too few. Sometimes, the animals aren’t suitable as they don’t have identifiable silhouettes—or there aren’t any animals at all!
If you’re lucky enough to get everything you need, your next job is to dial in the right settings. I usually shoot wide open in manual with auto ISO, but that doesn’t really work for silhouette shots.
That’s why I recently changed my approach. I now shoot in aperture priority at f/16 (to keep both my subject and the clouds and/or sun sharp) and dial in the minimum ISO (100 on my Sony ⍺1 and 64 on my Nikon Z8) to maximise image quality. If there isn’t enough light for the camera to set a high enough shutter speed, I manually increase the ISO to whatever I need.
Finally, when you’re taking pictures, it’s usually an advantage to get as low as possible to get a clean silhouette, so if you’re in a safari vehicle, it’s worth asking your driver if it’s safe for you to get out and lie or sit on the ground. (A poncho comes in very handy if there’s a lot of dew!)
Anyway, here are my favourite silhouettes from Kicheche Laikipia (see above). The next time you’re on safari, give it a go…!
Cheetahs
I know I wasn’t at Kicheche Laikipia for the cheetahs, but we had one fantastic sighting. It started when we heard over the radio about a male cheetah somewhere on the plain. When we found him, he was sleeping, but we then heard about another two cheetahs in the area. When we spotted them, we drove to where we thought they were, but the grass was so high that they were impossible to spot—until we almost ran over one of them!
After that, we followed the two cheetahs down the road as they searched for possible prey. The best moment came when they climbed on to a stone marker post. It was a great sighting and a perfect moment! And it wasn’t over yet. There was a mixed herd of impala and Grant’s gazelles further down the track, and the cheetahs spotted them. Simon and I thought they were bound to try and hunt one of them, but they never did. Shame…
Other Animals
When there weren’t any rhinos about, I took the odd portrait of other animals. There weren’t many action shots to be had, though, so it was slim pickings…
Birds
There were plenty of birds in Ol Pejeta—just not many of the right ones! My favourites are always the birds of prey, followed by lilac-breasted rollers, bee-eaters and kingfishers. Unfortunately, we saw very few of any of those, so I couldn’t take very many portraits or take-off shots.
Verdict
The hat was borrowed…!
It was my first trip to the last of the Kicheche camps, and I’m glad I went. There was something so astonishingly liberating about seeing so many rhinos and being able to photograph them almost at will. Yes, I knew there would be rhinos, but not that many! It was great.
In all, I took 30 videos and 51,161 pictures. I didn’t get any five-star images (ie any to add to my Top 100), but I gave four stars to 40 of them.
I should also say that Kicheche is always a safe bet, and I knew from past experience that pretty much everything would run like clockwork. Apart from a few minor quibbles, the rooms, the setting, the experience, the staff, the service and the food were all excellent, and I look forward to going again soon—or at least as soon as I can afford it!
Species
Here are all the species of animals and birds I saw. The ones I’d never seen before are shown in bold.
Animals (24)
African bush elephant
Black-backed jackal
Cape buffalo
Cheetah
Common eland
Common warthog
Defassa waterbuck
(Eastern) black rhinoceros
Jackson’s hartebeest
Grant’s gazelle
Impala
Leopard tortoise
Lion
Olive baboon
Plains zebra
Reticulated giraffe
Scrub hare
(Southern) white rhino
Spotted hyena
Steenbok
Striped hyena
Thomson’s gazelle
Vervet monkey
White-tailed mongoose
Birds (71)
African grass owl
African grey flycatcher
African pied wagtail
African quail finch
African spoonbill
Augur buzzard
Banded martin
Barn swallow
Black-bellied bustard
Black-chested snake-eagle
Black-headed heron
Black-lored babbler
Black-winged kite
Blacksmith lapwing
Brimstone canary
Cattle egret
Chestnut sparrow
Common bulbul
Common quail
Common waxbill
Crested francolin
Crowned lapwing
Egyptian goose
Emerald-spotted wood-dove
Fischer’s sparrow-lark
Fork-tailed drongo
Gabar goshawk
Golden-breasted fantail
Great egret
Greater blue-eared starling
Grey crowned crane
Grey-capped social weaver
Grey-headed kingfisher
Hadada ibis
Hamerkop
Helmeted guineafowl
Kenya rufous sparrow
Kittlitz’s plover
Kori bustard
Lilac-breasted roller
Little bee-eater
Long-tailed widowbird
Malachite kingfisher
Northern anteater chat
Northern white-crowned shrike
Pin-tailed whydah
Red-billed duck
Red-billed oxpecker
Red-billed quelea
Red-cheeked cordon-bleu
Red-collared widowbird
Red-headed weaver
Red-necked spurfowl
Red-rumped swallow
Ring-necked dove
Sacred ibis
Shelley’s francolin
Speckled mousebird
Spotted thick-knee
Superb starling
Taita shrike
Tawny eagle
Three-banded plover
White-bellied bustard
White-bellied go-away-bird
Yellow-billed stork
White-browed coucal
Yellow-necked spurfowl
Yellow-rumped seed-eater
Yellow-throated longclaw
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