Big Scary Animals

Five elephants in Kenya
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Decided to do more than look around Nairobi and bathe in the bath temperature pool at the Stanley today.

Up at the crack of dawn for a tour out to the Nairobi National Park (Nairobi is the only capital with its own national park on the doorstep), the Elephant orphanage and the Giraffe Sanctuary.

Looks like the dog's dinner.

We negotiated with a local tour company for a car and driver for the day (8,000 KS)and started at the national park about half a mile out of town. This is a true bush park. The animals fend for themselves and the laws of the jungle apply.

Dave makes a new friend.
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We saw giraffe, zebra, warthogs (in the distance) and then some cute looking lions near the side of the road sat there with a domestic looking dog. It all looked very cute and remarkable until we realised the dog was wounded and was fresh meat for supper later that day.

The real surprise was the black rhino that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and looked very menacingly at us. So much so, the driver kept a very safe distance from him.

Onto the elephant orphanage which was just magical. Tiny baby elephants playing around in front of us. One was wrapped up in a coat to keep it warm (who knew baby elephants suffer from pneumonia).

Annette gets up close and personal.
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Then onto the giraffe sanctuary where we were able to feed the giraffes by hand and give them a cuddle - till they got fed up.

A great start for the tour which we join tomorrow - Saturday

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Apologies at this stage for the lack of photos. It's taken me three internet cafes to be able to add anything to the blogs at all and twenty minutes to upload the three pictures of Nairobi on the previous blog. If I can work out how to do it more easily I will.