Kenya is a beautiful country and one of the best places in the world for wildlife safaris. The landscapes vary from wide open savannahs to desert to vast lakes to lush mountain forests. Here you will find an incredible array of wildlife.
Kenya: Lake Naivasha
🌥️ Onto the Rift Valley’s Highest Lake
The morning we left for Lake Naivasha started grey and overcast, with that hint of rain in the air that any Londoner knows all too well — the sort of sky that makes you wonder if you’ve packed the right coat. We were on our way to the Masai Mara, but Karen and I had a couple of activities lined up at Lake Naivasha first, so after breakfast we headed out for a boat safari. Nothing like starting the day with a bit of water under you.
We donned our life jackets — always a comforting touch, that, even on a lake — and climbed aboard what was essentially a small fishing boat, our captain for the morning a young chap called Kennedy. Now, the recent history of this lake is genuinely fascinating, and worth a moment of your time before we get to the birds and the hippos.
Lake Naivasha sits in Nakuru County, in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, at an elevation of around 1,884 metres above sea level, which makes it the highest of all the Rift Valley lakes. We learned that the name itself comes from the Maasai word ɛnaɨpɔ́sha, meaning “that which heaves” — a reference to the sudden squalls that can whip up waves on what’s otherwise a calm, glassy stretch of water. The British, doing what the British have always done rather badly, mangled the pronunciation into “Naivasha,” which rather charmingly means the lake is technically called “Lake Lake.” We rather liked that.
Geologically, this whole area sits in a tectonic depression carved out by Rift Valley faulting, ringed by extinct and dormant volcanoes including Mount Longonot and the Olkaria Hills. About ten thousand years ago, Naivasha, along with neighbouring Lake Elementaita and Lake Nakuru some sixty kilometres further north, were all one single, deep freshwater lake before it eventually dried up and split into the three lakes you’ll find on a map today. The water levels here have swung about wildly over the centuries — down to a paltry 0.6 metres in 1945, up to nearly six metres by 1968, down again in 1987 — so this is not a lake that sits still for long.
Kennedy filled us in on the very recent chapter of that story. Back in 2020, the level of Lake Naivasha, along with all the other lakes scattered along the Rift Valley, rose dramatically and suddenly. This had nothing to do with heavy rainfall, as you might expect, but was instead the result of tectonic activity forcing water up from the subterranean aquifers below and pushing it to the surface. The flooding happened remarkably fast, and by the time of our visit the waters were only just beginning to recede. The lake’s surface area, which had been a fairly settled 139 square kilometres before 2010, ballooned out to nearly 198 square kilometres by 2020 — that’s an extraordinary jump for any body of water, let alone one in the middle of the Rift Valley.
The consequences of all that extra water were plain to see everywhere we looked. Many lakeside properties had been swamped, and whole stands of trees had been left standing underwater, eventually dying where they stood. As you travel out across the lake, you see the signs of this devastation on every side — abandoned buildings poking out of the shallows, dead trees protruding from the water like skeletal fingers. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that these dead trees now make absolutely smashing perches for the local waterfowl, who seem entirely unbothered by the tragedy that put them there.
🦩 Storks, Pelicans and a Right Old Assortment of Birdlife
Our journey began along the shoreline, where yellow-billed storks and herons were wading about in the shallows, patiently searching out their breakfast. A little further along we came across a small colony of great white pelicans and flamingos, which made for a proper spectacle. We carried on following the banks, and honestly the variety of birdlife on show was something else — African jacanas, spoonbills, egrets, ibis, cormorants, ducks, geese, and African fish eagles, which have these striking white heads not unlike a bald eagle back home, if you can picture that against an African backdrop. We also clocked a couple of hippo groups along the way, who were doing absolutely nothing in particular, just lazing about in the water as hippos tend to do when they’re not busy being the most dangerous animal in Africa.
🎣 Fishermen, Tilapia and a Tale That Made Us Wince
From the banks we motored out towards the interior of the lake, and it’s worth saying just how big this body of water actually is — we’re talking hundreds of square miles here. The average depth is a relatively modest seven metres, though it plunges down to twenty-four metres in places. Out in the open water we came across a group of men who had waded out waist-deep, fishing for tilapia using a net strung between them. Now, this is about as risky a way to earn a living as you could imagine, given the lake is absolutely teeming with hippos.
Kennedy told us a story that has stuck with us ever since. A few years earlier, a similar group of fishermen had been working with one of their number acting as spotter, keeping an eye out for trouble. When a hippo suddenly surfaced right near the spotter, the poor chap soiled himself on the spot — and frankly, who could blame him, given that hippos kill more people in Africa than lions, crocodiles and elephants combined — and legged it without so much as a warning to the others. The hippo, sadly, went on to kill one of the remaining fishermen. It’s a sobering reminder that for all the postcard prettiness of this lake, it’s still very much wild Africa out there, and the locals who work its waters take real risks every single day.
We left the fishermen to their hazardous task and motored on past the skeletons of tented rooms that had once formed part of a country club, now half-submerged and abandoned thanks to the rising waters. Kennedy steered us alongside another fishing boat, and after a spot of friendly chit-chat, the fishermen handed over a tilapia before we carried on our way. Nearing the shore again, Kennedy brought us to a halt and pointed out a pair of fish eagles perched up in the trees. He told us to get our cameras ready, then lobbed the tilapia into the water. Within seconds the eagles had left their roost and were circling the spot where the fish had landed, and in a flash one of them swooped down and plucked it clean out of the water. Marvellous to watch, no question — but Kennedy was honest enough to admit it’s not really good practice, since it risks teaching wild eagles to depend on handouts from humans rather than fishing for themselves. If that dependency builds up and the food source ever dries up, the birds could lose their hunting instincts altogether and end up starving. Worth bearing in mind before you get too snap-happy with the camera.
🦒 Meeting Nixon, and Giraffes With Chemical Weapons
Our time on the lake came to an end, and we headed back to shore, where Kennedy handed us over to a guide called Nixon for the nature walk — and yes, we did notice the American presidential theme running through the guides’ names that day. Now, if you were in England and someone told you they were taking you on a nature walk, you’d probably picture wandering across a field somewhere, listening to a bit of birdsong. Nothing wrong with that, mind, we’re rather partial to it ourselves back home — but it’s not exactly why we’d flown several thousand miles to Africa, so our expectations going in with Nixon were, I’ll admit, fairly low.
We were quickly put right. Nixon started telling us about the acacia trees dotted around the reserve, and this turned into one of the more genuinely fascinating bits of natural history we picked up on the whole trip. The acacias closest to the lake were dead, swallowed up by the rising waters in 2020. Further inland, the trees were faring rather better, though their trunks were heavily scarred. The reason for the scarring, it turns out, is giraffes — who are particularly partial to acacia leaves, using their extraordinarily long tongues to navigate around the vicious, spiny needles that cover the branches. They’re also rather keen on the bark, which is where the trouble starts. According to Nixon, when a giraffe strips bark from an acacia tree, the tree responds after a while by producing a toxin that’s actively poisonous to the giraffe, forcing it to stop feeding and move on. More remarkably still, the tree apparently sends out some kind of warning signal — Nixon wasn’t entirely sure whether this travels through the root system or by some other means — to neighbouring acacia trees within several metres, which then start producing the same toxin themselves, warding the giraffes off before they even arrive. The effect lasts three or four hours before the toxin production stops and the trees return to normal. We thought that was properly clever stuff for something that can’t even move.
While we’d been chatting away and walking, we came across some antelope — sturdy waterbucks and delicate little impalas — who seemed entirely unbothered by our presence and let us get remarkably close. These are wild animals, mind you, not zoo exhibits behind a fence; they could have bolted off into the distance whenever they fancied it. They stick around because there’s plentiful food and relative safety from predators, the main threat here being the odd pack of hyenas. Interestingly, the wildlife in this particular reserve wasn’t always there naturally — it was introduced from the Masai Mara specifically to film sequences for the 1985 film Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford (we’d mistakenly remembered it as a Glenn Close picture, but credit where it’s due, it was Streep who played Karen Blixen). The film was based on the memoir of the same name by Danish author Karen Blixen, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen, recounting her years running a coffee farm in Kenya in the early twentieth century. Crescent Island, just off the shore here, was where much of the wildlife footage was shot, and the animals that were brought in for filming simply stayed on afterwards, which is rather a nice happy accident of cinema history.
🦓 Giraffes, Zebras, and a Birthday Surprise Called Wonder
Leaving the antelope behind, we came upon a mother and baby giraffe tucking into a fallen acacia tree. Giraffes are firmly among our favourite animals, so we lingered here for quite some time, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. Eventually Nixon dragged us away, past a small group of wildebeest, towards a large male giraffe lying down on his own a little further off. Nixon explained that you can tell a male giraffe by its little knobbly horns — properly called ossicones, though he didn’t use that word and neither did we until we looked it up afterwards — which are bald on top from years of head-butting other males, and that giraffes actually have five of these horns rather than the two most people assume, one of them tiny and easy to miss unless you’re standing right up close, which we were.
The only animal we hadn’t yet got properly close to were the zebras, and as luck would have it we stumbled across a small group of four grazing right along our path. They barely registered we were there at all. I couldn’t have been more than four feet away from one of them, which felt rather extraordinary given that, back home, the closest you’d normally get to a zebra is through a fence at a safari park. It was genuinely one of the highlights of the whole walk.
By this point it was properly time to leave — we were, in fact, running well into overtime — but we simply couldn’t resist one last stop to meet the newest arrival at the reserve, a young giraffe named Wonder, born on the 28th of May, which happens to be my own birthday too. We felt an instant connection, what with the two of us both being unusually tall, undeniably cute, and a bit bandy-legged when we walk. Nixon kindly took a photograph of the two of us together, which now has pride of place among our holiday snaps.
In summary …
Lake Naivasha’s location close to Nairobi makes it a thoroughly sensible place to stop, whether you’re at the beginning, middle or end of a longer tour of Kenya. It’s not a detour, it’s practically on the way.
A boat trip on the lake is well worth doing, particularly if you’ve any interest in birds at all — and even if you haven’t, you’ll almost certainly clock a hippo or two, which tends to focus the mind rather wonderfully.
A visit to the nature reserve, meanwhile, is a thoroughly good way of getting up close to some of Kenya’s wildlife, including antelope, wildebeest and giraffes, without the bars of a zoo enclosure or the windscreen of a safari vehicle getting in the way. It strikes us as a particularly safe and sensible option if you’ve got younger children along for the ride, since the animals here are genuinely docile and the setting is controlled enough to put nervous parents at ease.
Planning your visit to Lake Naivasha
| 📍 Location | Lake Naivasha, Nakuru County, Kenya, approx. 90 km northwest of Nairobi | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 🕖 Opening Times | Daily, 6:00 AM – 6:00 PM (varies by lodge/boat operator) | 🌐 Website | kws.go.ke |
| 📞 Phone | +254 20 600 0800 | info@kws.go.ke | |
| 🚤 Boat Trips | Available from various jetties around the lake (e.g., Crater Lake Camp, Fisherman’s Camp) | ||
| 🦏 Nearby Attractions | Hell’s Gate National Park, Crescent Island, Crater Lake Game Sanctuary | ||
| ℹ️ Notes | Boat trips and park fees are charged separately. Hippo sightings are common; stay with a guide. |
🎟️ Entry Fees
| Foreign Non-Residents | Foreign Residents | Kenyan Citizens |
|---|---|---|
| $25 | $15 | KSh 300 |
🚗 Getting There
By Road: Drive northwest from Nairobi along the A104 (Nairobi–Nakuru Highway), approximately 1.5–2 hours depending on traffic. By Matatu/Bus: Regular matatus and buses run from Nairobi’s Nakuru-bound routes to Naivasha town, then connect by local taxi to the lake. By Air: Charter flights are available to nearby airstrips for those visiting via safari packages.
7
The Best Time to Visit Kenya
☀️ Long Dry Season (June–October)
This is the prime safari season. Rainfall is low, vegetation thins out, and animals gather near water sources, making wildlife easy to spot. The Great Migration reaches the Masai Mara around July and August, with river crossings continuing into September before the herds head back to Tanzania in October. Mornings can be crisp, especially in the highlands.
What to pack: breathable clothing for warm days with a fleece or jumper for cool mornings, neutral-coloured safari wear, a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, sun cream, binoculars, a camera, comfortable walking shoes, and a light rain jacket.
🌴 Short Dry Spell (January–February)
A second, shorter dry window between the rains. Inland it’s hot and sunny, with daytime temperatures often in the high twenties to thirties, while the coast is hot and humid. The landscape is still lush from the short rains, parks are quieter than peak season, and it’s a great time to combine safari with beach time or climbing Mount Kenya.
What to pack: light, breezy clothing, swimwear and a sarong for the coast, a hat and high-factor sun cream, insect repellent, a refillable water bottle, sandals plus sturdier shoes for game drives, and a light layer for cooler evenings.
🌧️ Long Rains (March–May)
The wettest period, especially April, with heavy downpours that can make park roads muddy. The upside is lush, green scenery, dramatic skies, fewer tourists, and the lowest prices of the year. May sees rain settle in further, and coastal weather becomes less beach-friendly.
What to pack: a waterproof jacket and trousers, quick-drying clothing, waterproof boots or shoes, a dry bag or rain cover for camera gear, a compact umbrella, insect repellent, and warm layers for damp evenings.
🍃 Short Rains (November–December)
Showers are brief, usually in the afternoon, leaving plenty of dry, sunny hours either side. Most parks and camps stay open, crowds are thinner, and prices drop. December can turn hot, with wildlife viewing still strong throughout.
What to pack: a packable rain jacket, breathable daywear, a hat and sun cream, comfortable quick-drying shoes, a dry bag for electronics, and a warm layer for cooler evenings.
Summary Table
Overall Best Time to Visit
If you can only pick one window, June to October is the best overall time to visit Kenya, combining dry weather, easy wildlife spotting and the Great Migration. The trade-off is bigger crowds and higher prices, particularly in August. Many seasoned travellers favour September specifically, as it offers excellent weather and game viewing with fewer crowds than peak August. If you’d rather save money and avoid the crowds, the shoulder season of January–February or the rainy months of March–May and November–December offer a quieter, more affordable alternative without sacrificing much in the way of wildlife or scenery.
Naivasha Sopa Lodge
Lake Naivasha Sopa Lodge is a large lodge complex on the shores of Lake Naivasha.The accommodation is based around four rooms units – two on the top and two on the bottom. They have thatched roofs and in my mind would not have looked out of place on the set of ‘Lord of the Rings’.
The room itself was large and spacious and with a large comfortable bed, plenty of storage and massive bathroom. Unusally, the room had a sofa and a TV – the first time we had experience this in our tour of Kenya.
There was wi-fi in the rooms which was great.
All the rooms overlook the grounds where there is wildlife wandering around right outside your room, including impala, zebra and a giraffe or two. During the evening hours hippos leave the lake to come and feed on the lush grass of the Resorts grounds. This presents a threat to the visitors, so after dark the Resoirt will send someone to escort you from your room to the main lodge building and back again after you have finished.
The common areas are more spectacular then the rooms, including attractive dining room, large bar area and ample comfy seating with great views from the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the grounds and wildlife. The main building where dinner is served is very impressive with huge high ceilings and a spacious feel. There are nice patio tables, a large pool area, a tennis court, and very attractively landscaped areas around the buildings.
The meals are all buffet, which also included local dishes. There were plenty of vegetarian options and the food was tasty. The service we received from the Restaurant was very good and very friendly, the chefs and waiting staff were very pleasant.
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