Spotting the Big 5 at Ol Pejeta

After a couple of nights in Nairobi, and a full day visiting the Sheldrake Wildlife Orphanage, Langatta Giraffe Centre and Karen Blixen Museum, our Two’s a Crowd group set off for Nanyuki, Mt Kenya. 

Jaros, our guide from RAW Africa Eco-tours, had some amazing experiences planned for us. We were to spend a couple of nights in Nanyuki, before heading off for some camping in Ngare Ndare forest and Il Ngwesi Conservancy, with a full-day game drive through Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Mt Kenya.

Ol Pejeta was once a large cattle ranch but today it plays a vital role in the conservation of wildlife, particularly rhinos. The last two Northern white rhinos are sheltered here, fortunately male and female, and efforts are being made to breed. However, it will require IVF and a surrogate mother (a southern white rhino), and I’m left scratching my head wondering how it gets to this?

We arrived nice and early, organised our northern white rhino encounter at the front gate, then set off. It wasn’t long until we spied two black rhinos in some thick bush about 150m away. Although a long way off and in bushes, it is hard not to just want to sit and watch (and click away). 

However, there is so much to see in Ol Pejeta that we couldn’t sit for long. We were well rewarded – about 30 minutes later we came across a mother and baby white rhino. This time there was no thick bush. After some time watching these amazing creatures we headed off to visit Barak the blind black rhino and spend some time with the Northern white rhino.

We were lucky enough to get quite close to these awesome creatures under the watchful eye of his handler, of course. And it really brought home the size and strength of the rhinos.

In fact our whole day was one long amazing wildlife encounter. We saw many more rhino, buffalo and giraffe. We went to the Chimpanzee sanctuary and in the last 10 minutes of the day, on our way to the gate to exit, we came across a lioness on a late afternoon hunt. An amazing day of wildlife encounters, with the only break being for lunch (a beautiful meal at Morani’s restaurant).

I can’t wait to get back to Ol’ Pejeta.

*Adrian was a photographic tour host on this trip with Two’s A Crowd, who engaged RAW Africa Eco-Tours as guides for this tour.

Fast Facts

We travelled to Kenya in July 2016 

We stayed at Il Ngwesi Eco Lodge

We were here for two nights

Was it long enough? I could sit and watch wildlife for days, so it’s never long enough, but it was a good amount of time to see everything we wanted to see.

Highlights: Seeing so many rhinos, particularly the baby rhino.

Read more of our adventures in Kenya here.

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