Day trip to Lake Naivasha

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen," Ben proclaimed as we got off the small plastic tour dinghy. Will forgave his parents for killing our plans to go clubbing the previous night; this had been worth it. It was just lunch time, and we had already seen more incredible wildlife in a single day than ever before in our lives.
Having rented a rugged (and painfully cramped) 4x4, the family piled in and set off for a pleasant Sunday day-trip. Feeling lazy, we opted against the steep four hour hike around the crater of a volcano and instead drove two hours to Lake Naivasha despite mixed reviews. We just wanted to relax and see some nice scenery, and our expectations were certainly exceeded.
We first tried the somewhat (in)famous Lake Naivasha Country Club, which was nice enough but unreasonably priced and quite colonial feeling. We took it as a bad sign that the only people in line for the tour boat were exceedingly dorky, rich tourists. Instead, we decided to backtrack and try "Hippo Safaris" because it seemed lower class, at least judging from their sign on the road. Excellent decision.
For much cheaper we got a private boat tour and walking safari around Crescent Island. From the boat we saw an array of fantastic birds (flamingo, great kingfisher, grey heron, spoonbill, african fish eagle, pelicans, and plenty more I can't name) and two families of hippos. At the island we were able to roam freely amongst the animals as there were no aggressive predators. We were constantly surrounded by a mix of wildebeast, waterbuck, zebras, giraffes, antelopes and impala. Upon further research we realized that the island is apparently not the most spectacular game park in Kenya, but we were oblivious of that at the time. Not seeing any feline predators was a fair sacrifice to be able to walk and mingle so close to the wildlife. We were so jubilantly excited the whole time that as soon as we got back in the car after lunch we all promptly passed out on each other's shoulders. Jon quietly chauffeured us home, stopping only to admire the impressive rift valley from a roadside outlook.