Nakuru, Kenya

We wake early on Christmas Day, ready for a 7am departure for the long drive to our next destination, Lake Nakuru. Returning along the bumpy road to Narok, we stop for a toilet break at a souvenir stall where we buy ourselves a little Christmas present, having come empty-handed. It's a colourful, abstract painting of African figures for just a few US dollars.

When we reach Narok we turn north along the Trans-Africa Road and pass Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano and Lake Naivasha, a huge freshwater lake, before stopping again at Naivasha Town, motto 'The place to be!' It's the most developed place we've seen since Nairobi, and even boasts a high end shopping mall, although a herd of cows are grazing in the grounds and slums abound right next door.

From Naivasha Town to Lake Nakuru, past saltwater Lake Elemantaita and through the Mau Escarpment, we encounter an unending stream of traffic. Families crammed into cars travelling to festive celebrations vie for space with huge lorries chugging along the road.

Finally after more than six hours driving we turn off the main road and head down another bumpy dirt track to the entrance to Lake Nakuru National Park, which optimistically has rhinos emblazoned on its gates. Unlike the Maasai Mara, which is vast and open, a huge wild space stretching into Tanazania where it is named the Serengeti, this park is much smaller and enclosed by electric fencing to protect the residents of the city of Nakuru, which is right on the border of the park.

However, it being a holiday it seems half the residents of the city have hopped in their cars and are attempting a self-drive safari. The roads through the park are full of cars, creating billowing clouds of dust.

The hour long drive to the Nakuru Sopa Lodge becomes a choking ordeal so when we finally arrive for lunch, accompanied by a Kenyan Father Christmas, Coman and I steal napkins from the restaurant to create face-mask bandanas for the late afternoon game drive.

The lodge is situated high above the lake with incredible panoramic views and our room is almost a house in itself. It's vast with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the lake and a bathroom bigger than some people's flats. I remember the Maasai huts of cow dung and feel truly blessed to have the life I do.

We celebrate our good fortune with a Christmas lunch of vegetarian Indian curries, overlooking the lake, and then it's time to go hunting for rhino!

At first after the treasures and spectacle of the Maasai Mara, Nakuru disappoints. Heavily wooded, and with vehicles confined to the roads, spotting anything requires eagle-eyes. Distant views of gazelle and buffalo are underwhelming and only black-faced ververt monkeys and a family of baboons provide momentary distractions.

However after fifty minutes we arrive at the open grasslands by the lake, where buffalo and zebra gather under the shade of the yellow-barked acacia trees - or fever-trees as they're known due to their location by water and the resulting preponderance of malarial mosquitoes. Swallows in their thousands flock around the animals, picking off the insects they attract with displays of mid-air acrobatics.

More and more birds are gathered by the lakeside. Famous for playing host to more than half a million flamingos, sadly they almost all recently departed for other lakes so their numbers are nowadays vastly depleted, but a small flock is visible out on the lake with pelicans, herons, cormorants and marabou storks all in various groups.

However the greatest treat of all, and a definite Christmas present in our eyes, is the sight of four white rhino lying in the swampy grass. Weighing three tonne each they are quite glorious and we can't believe our luck when slowly they all get to their feet and start moving towards us.

Closer and closer they come, crossing the road in front of us and moving down to the lake where to our joy and amazement they all start drinking within just a few metres of us. We watch transfixed for ten minutes as they take their fill and then one unleashes a torrent of piss that lasts a full sixty seconds. In one end and out the other!!

We finish with a visit to Baboon Cliff for a great view of the lakes, whilst we dodge the brazen primates keen to steal anything not locked down, and then return to the Lodge for Christmas dinner.

Our hunt for the last of the Big Five has been a success but there's no rest ahead. Tomorrow we have a twelve hour journey south to the foothills of Mount Kilimanjiro where more wonders will unfold. We can't wait!