Hunters Lodge

 

Hunters Lodge

Right by a small lake and very peaceful though. Monday we set off quite early heading for Nanyuki which is a good 220 miles away. The East Africa highway is full of pot holes and every other vehicle is a haulage truck but the section to Nairobi from Hunters Lodge was fantastic. I (Martin) remember turning out of Hunters Lodge onto the tarmac, being warmed by the early morning sun and just thinking how great it was to be able to be there and doing this trip. The ride was wonderful until we go to Nairobi where we have to find the Nanyuki road. We stopped off at the bank to try our luck with an ATM. It was all heavily guarded and Paul had a nice chat with Gabriel the guard while I went to try the ATM..which worked!

 

  

Gabriel the ATM guard

Paul writes...

Having had a fantastic ride up to Nairobi, neither of us were looking forward to navigating our way through Nairobi town centre to the Thika Highway. On our previous trip this was one of the worst experiences we encountered. Absolute chaos, swelteringly hot, no road rules and no signposts. For me it was even worse as I had Martin with me!

As I was leading on our approach to Nairobi, I decided to stop prior to entering the main town so that we could establish a game plan to emerge the other side still friends. We pulled onto the hard shoulder and after Martin had made some adjustments to his small tubes we agreed that I would lead with Martin following as close as possible.

We set off and within 2 minutes Martin had overtaken me, What was the point I asked myself (although I may have used slightly different words!)

Martin...

Typical of Africa is that every person we asked in the traffic jam for the way to the Nanyuki road gave us a different answer accompanied by sweeping and assured hand movements (watch it Charlie!!!). Despite this, we reached the Thika highway - a modern three lane motorway with actual green signs and actual junction numbers safely accommodating speeds of over 90 MPH (don’t worry Sophie!!!). Anyway we found something much more African than that which was the introduction of zebra crossing across the highway. They were randomly strewn across the motorway in typical African style there was no warning at all of this other than a HUGE sleeping policeman located at about 5 yards distance from the crossing….CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!

We arrived in Nanyuki around 4.00pm which is an equator town.

The scenery was getting progressively more spectacular. Kenyan landscapes getting bigger and more magnificent all the way. The road was very good and hardly any traffic. Each time you reach a ‘station’ where people are selling goods etc you are slowed by speed bumps. These vary but they are all fierce and some have one, others have many. They appear at the start and the finish but this is always unpredicatable. 

 Typical stuff at a station

I love these stations they smell of fire wood and you can buy anything from an inner tube to some firewood. Fantastic. The ride was so great and once we were clear of Nairobi it was what this trip is all about. 

 Martin pulling out of a 'station' amongst the 

usual chaos

The Kimara Springs Hotel in Nanyuki should have been a welcoming sight after 225 miles of riding which was not kind to the Coccyx! It was just off the road on a bumpy track and it looked distinctly unpromising. Apparently Lonely Planet says it is the best of a bad bunch in Nanyuki. HOWEVER it is a great place. The staff, like all the Kenyans we have met are so lovely and have a great sense of humour. We have a view of mount Kenya which makes up for…pretty much everything else! The ‘Hotel’ is perfect for what we need. We were starving so we had half a chicken each for supper with delicious greens accompanied by the very loud Kenyan TV news (new government here so everyone is very excited and optimistic) and good chats with the staff.  The promise of a good night’s sleep in decent sized beds beckoned. We both slept badly and had to be up early to meet up with Humphrey.

Tuesday

Woke early and had very small breakfast in anticipation of large lunch with Humphrey at his farm in the country. 

Humphrey is our Kenyan fixer and shipper. He was so excited to hear we would be heading in his direction when we arrived n Mombasa as he was up country at his farm. So we left Mombasa a day early and took Tuesday as our Humphrey day. He was longing to show us his farm!

 Usual random Police Check point. Miss this and you definitely get a puncture

 Scenery on the way to Humphrey's farm

Paul...

We met him at Meru at 0830 as agreed and followed him to his farm.

50 acres of trees, scrub and bracken alongside a half built pig-pen a half built chicken house and a white painted trestle table upon which was a bottle of Grants Whisky! Neither of us expected this. We were taken on a tour of the “grounds” where Humphrey explained there would be a 9 hole golf course here, chalets there, go-Kart track over the back – it went on and on including how he would fly us in on a chopper for the opening. The thing is with Humphrey, neither of us can tell if this is fantasy or will really happen. 

 At the trestle table on the farm!

The chicken. A boiled 'road runner'

Bike at the farm looking 'Adventurish'

A puppy at the farm

That said, he took us for a tour of the local countryside which truly was spectacular; So far every day has been better than the day before.

Kenya!

3pm and we say goodbye so that we can return to our hotel and update the blog. I hope you are all grateful!!

En route we stop at the equator…….

Equator Pic!

Where I end up buying what we thought was a leopard or cheetah but was surprised to hear it described by the “salesman” as a tiger. 

 This much sought after item will be raffled for charity upon our return so start saving!

Tomorrow we set of to Samburu Intrepids Camp. We meet our host at the nobly named ‘Archers Post’  which is the entrance to the park, We are scheduled for three days there to relax and go on any of the twice daily game drives. Cameras will be fully charged. Or as they say here ‘Chaagd’.  We don’t know if there will be internet access so you may have to wait for the next installment,