Day - 26 Naivasha to Kentmere Club in Limuru, Kenya

Could not resist this image of the vastness

Claudia spotted this 5 minutes after we had been sitting out side the car having lunch

Part of a group of 6 hyenas where there was a competition for the Alpha female position

Wildebeest on the march

In the middle of the Mara and my two best spotters sleep on the job

This was not carved into the tree a Dassie hide hole

You cannot see it but Sinead had mud spotted on her face, disapproving Granny

Did not see a lot of Buffalo

Not sure which Eagle this is Claudia is good at inventing names

To round off Day 25 when we spent the morning in the Masai Mara doing the Eastern portion and we were lucky to see Cheetah a lot of Hyena as well as thousands of Wildebeest, Zebra, Giraffe, Eland and others. We head for the Selekani Gate as that has the best exit road.

The road after the gate is very dusty and in some places deep sand and heavily corrugated and we had our first and hopefully last near miss when the car hit deep sand and careered off the road and on correction went to the other side and back again before I managed to bring it back under control, my passengers were brilliant and very quiet including Sinead, whilst I was repeating “hold on

That is Mums tail baby ended up holding onto

Some of the many photo's of the marvelous wild life in the Mara above 

, hold on tight” Sinead knows that when any driver says this she must hold onto her seat or if out of the seat hang onto Claudia, which she got a lot of practice doing as when we approached towns and villages they have put humps in the road, mostly unmarked and some very large and dangerously steep.

After that piece of drama all went well until we got to Naivasha and we were unable to find our next stop at the Hexagon Farm, luckily we had a number and they sent someone to show us the way.

The Hexagon Farm where all the buildings are a geometric hexagon shape, very ugly and clearly previously owned by a white farmer after all a black farmer would not dream of building hexagon shaped buildings. Sad to say the farm is looking very worse for wear, but Sinead liked the goats, chickens and bunny rabbits as well as a solitary Turkey who thinks he is a chicken and is constantly trying to unseat the resident cockerel.

We were disappointed especially with the food, which when it eventually arrived was only just edible and the breakfast not much better, but it was only a one night stay to break the journey.

Naivasha is the centre of Kenya’s flower industry, which is a thriving industry with flowers flown out to destinations around the globe every night.

The state of Naivasha town is disgraceful and if you think South African municipalities are bad believe you me we do not know how lucky we are.

The bed at the Hexagon farm must also be in a Hexagon shape as it was terribly uncomfortable.

This morning we head off to Hells Gate National park very close to where we were staying and although the game consisted of Zebra, Impala, Giraffe and Wart Hogs the rock and geology of the area was fascinating and there are many hot geysers that they are utilising to supplement power into their grid. They are all over the place gushing steam. We were there early but as we were leaving there was crowds waiting to enter walking, cycling and driving, in fact there is a thriving mountain bike hire business in and outside the park.

Frome there we head off to Limuru where we are staying at the Kentmere Club and I must try and look up the history of the place which seems to be a colonial Gentlemen’s Club for the farmers in the Tigoni, Limuru and Banana Hill areas in times gone by, it has gone a little downhill since those days. It is in a beautiful setting with gardens that are well maintained, but this area has ideal conditions that if you put your finger in the ground it would grow, there is tea, coffee, flowers and vegetables being grown commercially.

Future Anti Poaching Ranger

It is very misty and raining when we arrive and we immediately lit the fire in our room. We are at 1900m altitude so the nights and mornings will be very cool. We have a reasonable meal and the bed is 1000 time better than the Hexagon farm bed. I spent hours trying to send the blogs , but the photo’s were taking ages to download so I aborted the exercise at 10h30, but will try and send some Masai Mara photo’s at a future venue.