Diary Lake Baringo, mistakenly identified by Burton as a possible source of the Nile is home to countless hippos and crocodiles. It also holds the world record for bird species recorded in a 24 hour period. Hippos come out of the water at dusk and graze (chomp) their way around the campsite, these guys weigh up to 3000kg and have very nasty tempers on them indeed. Now the kids sleep in the roof tent (hippos find ladders difficult), but Clare and I are on the ground. Luckily I have a secret weapon in the form of a beautiful English hazel staff given to me by John Roberts about three years ago. This is now my "family protection" and has served as a dog stick, buffalo stick, lion stick etc etc. At Lake Baringo I have to admit sleeping with it next to me. Luckily, although the hippos came within 10 metres or so they didn't bump into the tent and so I didn't have to find out how effective a naked, mad Welshman with an English hazel staff is at scaring hippos off……not very I suspect. You can buy an AK 47 for about $10 in Kenya, but I do think that would be a little unsporting!