If you love rhinos, you’ll love Ol Jogi…

Ol Jogi is in rhino country, and I had a rhino sighting on every single game drive until the final day of my visit. There are around 120 mainly black rhinos there, and it was great to see them. I hadn’t had so many sightings since I went to Etosha and saw 17 in one weekend!

We were also lucky enough to find a leopard and her cub on White Rock. It was the first time I’d ever seen a leopard cub, so those were definitely the two highlights of my trip.

I spent a week at Ol Jogi in late April, and it was very enjoyable. The staff and guests were friendly and knowledgeable, and I was able to go on morning and evening game drives most days. I took thousands of pictures with my two new mirrorless Sony a1 cameras, and I was pretty happy with the results—which is all that really matters to me as a photographer!

The Build-up

It all started back in August 2019 when I emailed Ol Jogi in Laikipia, Kenya, with the idea of spending time there as a kind of ‘residential photographer’. The deal was that I’d get free board and lodging in exchange for a copy of my pictures and my time as a coach if any of the guests needed photography lessons.

The request was passed up the line, but nothing much happened until January 2020. It’s often the way of things when I negotiate with safari lodges, so I just had to be patient.

In February 2020, I received the good news that they wanted me to visit for a week, probably in September or November that year. Unfortunately, that was just about the time that Covid hit, so in April everything was put on hold.

In 2021, I exchanged a couple of emails with my Ol Jogi contact, Carol, but it wasn’t until 7 April 2022 that I finally received the go-ahead. That was only three weeks before I was due to go to Muchenje Safari Lodge in Botswana, and I’d already booked my flights with Trailfinders, so I had to cancel them all in exchange for a voucher and rebook my new itinerary!

There followed the usual blizzard of last-minute emails about toiletries, anti-malarials, laundry schedules, shot lists and PCR tests.

It was all a bit stressful, particularly as the Government website said in black and white that I needed to take a PCR test on leaving Zimbabwe. I was supposed to be going to Botswana via Victoria Falls after the Kenya leg of my trip, so that would’ve applied to me. Fortunately, the owner of Muchenje had just been out there, and he assured me that I didn’t need one.

The other issue I had was what photography gear to pack. The weight limits on hand luggage are ridiculously low on some airlines, particularly on the local flights in smaller planes, and I always worry about being bumped off a plane for having too much stuff.

I wanted to take my 400mm and 600mm Sony lenses, but they wouldn’t both fit in my camera bag, so I would’ve had to take the 400mm in a separate dry bag. It probably would’ve been fine, and I did that when I went to Antarctica last year, but that was the first time I’d ever taken two bags as my hand luggage, and I wasn’t prepared to take the risk, so I left the 400mm at home.

I also thought about taking my tripod, but that meant even more weight and even more potential hassle, so I left that behind, too. However, I did take my gimbal tripod head and a clamp, hoping that I might be able to attach it to the jeep somehow.

When I’d booked my flights, I’d paid to put a bag in the hold, but In the end, I simply packed all my camera gear into my camera bag and stuffed my clothes and everything else in the inside pocket of my black, Callaway ‘super jacket’. I call it that because it has an inside pocket that goes all the way round the back, and it’s very handy to avoid having to check a bag!

The Trip

22-23 April

I left England on 22 April. The first (very pleasant) surprise came at Heathrow when I found out that I didn’t have to wear a mask. Hurrah! I celebrated with a glass of champagne and a smoked salmon blini at the Seafood Bar in Terminal 3.

Going through security, my camera bag was selected for a manual search - yet again! - but I was soon on my way to the gate.

I took the overnight flight to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, arriving early the next morning. The flight was 30 minutes early, but someone thought I had the wrong QR code to prove my vaccination status, and I was delayed at immigration. 

It was raining outside, and I was pestered by a female taxi driver until I asked her to leave me alone. It’s not often that happens in Kenya!

I eventually found my driver, Simon, and he drove me to Wilson Airport for my onward flight to Nanyuki. It hadn’t actually opened yet, so we had to wait in the car for half an hour.

When I was eventually able to check in, I had the usual problem at the weighing machine: the maximum weight was 15kg, but I was 6kg over the limit! I offered to put some of my gear in my jacket, but the guy told me that wouldn’t make a difference to the overall weight. I was about to argue the toss, but then he just told me to go through. Only in Africa…!

I had a cheese pancake and double espresso for breakfast at Brood, the airport café. It had changed a bit since I was last there on my very first safari in 2013, but the service was still just as good: after my food arrived, the waiter said, “Do you mind if I give you a single espresso?”

Only in Africa…!

I read the paper and then fished out my laptop in order to send my regular monthly newsletter. When I got the bill, I was able to do a quick comparison: 

• Breakfast at Heathrow: £54.90.

• Breakfast at Wilson: £5.49!

On the plane, I took a few videos out the window with my new DJI OM 5 gimbal before we touched down at Nanyuki.

Jackson Maina picked me up and drove me to Ol Jogi, which was 45 minutes away. We arrived just after midday - about 20 hours after I’d left home!

I took a gimbal video of Complex 1 - which sounds like a sci-fi movie! - and then had lunch with a man whose name I don’t remember, a woman whose name I don’t remember and a boy called Eden. The broccoli soup was delicious—if that’s what it was…

All the vehicles were being used, so I didn’t have a chance to go on a game drive, but I spoke to Fred, Johnnie and the owner, Alec Wildenstein, and eventually sorted out one for the next day at 0545. 

One of the guys kindly helped me with attaching my camera to the jeep, and I then sorted out breakfast of juice, fruit and muesli with the two women who’d been given the job of looking after me, Anne and Faith. They didn’t really understand how I could be happy with fruit for breakfast, but I managed to convince them. 

After the whole anti-malarial discussion, there was only one mosquito in my room that night, and I zapped it with a can of Mortein.

24 April

I had my fruit juice and fruit for breakfast followed by a six-hour game drive with Jackson, who was my personal chauffeur and guide while I was there. We had two rhino sightings, and I loved seeing a pied kingfisher fishing from the hover. I also saw gerenuk for the first time since 2013. 

I had lunch with Alec, Nadine and their family again, but the fish and salad wasn’t as good as the previous day’s soup!

My laptop overheated and packed up, so I had to read the paper rather than edit my pictures, but it didn’t really matter as things were pretty quiet on the evening game drive, with only one rhino sighting and not much else - not even a sunset!

25 April

On this morning’s game drive with Jackson, I saw lions and a rhino but not much else.

I had lunch with the extended family again and talked a bit to Nadine. 

It rained in the afternoon, so there was almost no game to see. However, I got some good shots of a tawny eagle. 

In the evening, I was asked to take pictures of a bush dinner at Ol Jogi’s secluded night-time retreat. I went back to my room to pick up my flash - only to realise it wasn’t compatible with my new cameras, so I had to spend the rest of the evening desperately using slow shutter speeds and negative exposure compensation to try and bring down ISOs that went as high as 40,000!

My job was to capture the scene, and it was certainly spectacular. I’ve been to a few bush dinners in my time, but I’d never had to cross a rope bridge to get there before! The whole set-up was very impressive, and I gave Fred my compliments.

It was fun to exchange banter with the guys, and Kevin was chuffed with the pictures I took of him. I also had a laugh with Movin and a quick chat with Alec and Nadine. 

The only problem came when I tried to take pictures of the Masai dancers. There was a spotlight, but it was behind them, so that didn’t help, and I ended up with a whole load of rubbish photos. Oops!

26 April

After drinking a late-night Coke, I didn’t sleep very well. However, that was partly the point. I only really drink Coke in Africa. It’s a little luxury I allow myself, and the caffeine means I can stay awake for a bit longer so that I can edit my pictures.

When I’m on safari, I like to go through and rate them all before the next game drive so that I can delete the rest in order to free up space on my hard drive. However, the 30fps continuous shooting speed of the Sony Alphas meant that I often had over 5,000 pictures to go through every morning and evening!

Even four terabytes don’t go very far when you have that many 55MB files to put somewhere…

Anyway, I had enough space left for the moment, and on my morning game drive I almost managed to pull off a dramatic rhino silhouette against the sunrise. In the end, it didn’t quite happen, but I did get some quality shots even though the quantity was rather lacking.

Seeing an eastern chanting-goshawk was the highlight, but I was also happy to get a few shots of a giraffe browsing a tree with Mount Kenya in the background. I also had a nose-to-nose encounter with a leopard tortoise—but I forgot to switch off the focus limiter on my lens so I missed the money shot…!

We were also charged by a rhino—which is not something that happens every day! It was a solitary male, and Jackson and I were maintaining what we thought was a respectful distance until he suddenly decided he’d had enough and galloped towards our jeep.

It was very exciting, but I just had to concentrate on capturing the moment with my camera rather than worrying about whether we were going to survive!

In the end, Jackson left it until the very last moment before driving off.

“That was a close one,” I said.

“Ah, most guides would’ve driven off too early,” he replied, “but I know rhinos…”

Er, thanks, Jackson.

Compared to that, nothing much happened on the evening game drive. Shame…

27  April

I woke up early, went to the bathroom and stepped on a beetle! This is something you just have to get used to when you’re in Africa, but it’s never pleasant.

During the morning game drive, I had another very exciting rhino sighting, but I managed to crop the horn off in the crucial shot, which bothered me no end.

I also missed capturing a giraffe nursing her baby, which I’d never seen before. Jackson stopped so that I could take a picture, but I was too slow to swap cameras, and then I had to tell him that the rhino was the priority. Sad, but true.

We then had a huge slice of luck when Jackson saw a leopard on a big rock going into a cave. He’d been promising me a leopard for a few days, and he told me he’d been getting a bit stressed about not seeing one, but this was genuinely the mother lode. We went back to White Rock every day after that to see the leopard, and we had some great sightings.

In the afternoon, Nadine asked me to cover the local school graduation and awards ceremony. It was a long, hot day, and I ended up getting sunburn on my right hand from holding the camera for so long, but I still enjoyed it.

Everyone was smiling and in such a good mood, and it was a good chance for me to use my shorter 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses to capture candid shots of the adults and kids in the audience. I wore my SpiderPro ‘gunslinger’ belt, much to the bewilderment (and amusement!) of a few people.

The only problem came when I decided to give my camera bag to someone for safekeeping. Somehow, it got given to someone else and then lost entirely. Jackson thought he knew where it might be, so we drove to someone’s house, but nobody was home. In the end, we only found it when we just happened to pass the car that was carrying it on the way home!

Not much to report on the evening game drive. We found the leopard again on the big rock, but apart from one long stretch and a spell lying in a tree, she didn’t do much.

and then there was a much-needed thunderstorm. Alec told me they’d been having the longest drought since 2009, so it was good to get a bit of rain at last…

28 April

I had to kill a slow worm, spider and beetle in my room. As Churchill might’ve said, there are some things up with which I simply will not put!

On the morning game drive, I saw a giraffe using a tree as an umbrella, a Grévy’s zebra on the horizon, a rhino lying down, another leopard tortoise and my very first leopard cub! This was a really big deal for me, but I didn’t really manage to get any decent pictures—of the cub, at least.

I was also amused by Jackson’s style of driving. He always scraped the sides of our Toyota LandCruiser on bushes without a care in the world, and I couldn’t help imagining him driving it somewhere in London.

If he ever drove round Chelsea, he’d probably end up ploughing down the narrow side streets, knocking off wing mirrors and scratching all the BMWs and Porsches in the neighbourhood. What fun…!

We went back to the leopard in the evening…

29 April

We had a good leopard and cub sighting in the morning, and then I was asked to photograph the cottages. It was a nice challenge, but when I went through the gate I almost fell over a giant tortoise! That was unexpected, to say the least, but I can still outrun a tortoise, so I was soon safely indoors…!

30 April

It was a quiet start to my last game drive at Ol Jogi, but we eventually got a radio call about a pride of lions, and I took a lot of backlit and front-lit portraits. They also looked like they were going to hunt an oryx. Unfortunately, I was caught short, so I had to go for an emergency toilet break - to ‘mark my territory’ or ‘check the tyres’, depending on which safari euphemism you prefer!

No leopards or rhinos, but I had a nice farewell from Jackson. When I thanked him for all his help, he shook my hand three different ways and said, “You are excellent!”

And then I left my jumper in the car, so that rather ruined the moment…!

When I got back to my room, I packed my bags and changed into my travelling clothes. My timing wasn’t great, though, and I ended up stark naked just when a gardener walked past the French windows, so I had to scuttle back into the bathroom to preserve my modesty!

I said goodbye to everyone at lunch on the terrace, and Nadine talked about the possibility of inviting me back. She even gave me a hug.

“That’s not very British,” she said…!

Next Steps

There were no afternoon flights from Nanyuki, so I’d booked a car to take me back to Nairobi airport. It was only $140, but it was supposed to be a six- or seven-hour journey, and I was a bit worried about driving for that long on the local roads. However, my driver managed to make it in just over four!

Eat your heart out, Lewis Hamilton…

And that was the end of my stay at Ol Jogi. It was really very enjoyable, and I have to say a big thank you to everyone there for making my stay so pleasant and, of course, to Alec and Nadine for inviting me in the first place.

Next stop: Botswana…!

Butcher’s Bill

1 x hot shoe cover for Sony Alpha 1 camera

Species List

Animals (30)

African bush elephant 

Agama lizard

Black rhinoceros

Black-backed jackal

Cape buffalo 

Common eland

Common impala 

Common ostrich 

Common warthog 

Common waterbuck 

Gemsbok

Gerenuk 

Grant’s gazelle

Grévy’s zebra

Hippopotamus 

Jackson’s hartebeest 

Kirk’s dik-dik

Leopard

Leopard tortoise 

Lion

Olive baboon

Plains zebra

Reticulated giraffe

Rock hyrax

Scrub hare

Spotted hyena

Suni 

Thomson’s gazelle

White rhino

White-tailed mongoose 

Birds (28)

African fish eagle

African spoonbill 

Blacksmith plover

Cattle egret

Common bulbul 

Eastern chanting-goshawk 

Egyptian goose

Greater blue-eared starling

Grey heron

Helmeted guineafowl 

Hildebrandt’s starling

Kori bustard

Laughing dove 

Lilac-breasted roller 

Little bee-eater

Masked weaver

Red-billed hornbill

Rüppell's long-tailed starling

Sacred ibis

Sooty chat

Spotted thick-knee

Superb starling

Swainson’s spurfowl

Tawny eagle 

Vulturine guineafowl

Woodland kingfisher 

Yellow-billed stork

Yellow-necked spurfowl

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

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