Friday, 30th July 2004
Another day on the road....well, a quite short hop, actually.
Left Lake Nakuru early and made our way into the Mount Kenya foothills. We spent nearly two hours climbing into light mist, as “rush-hour” went on around us. As we ascended, the scenery became more and more lush, and the mist heavier. We were passing through one of the serious agricultural regions of Kenya, between farms and plantations.
First vegetables, then fruit, then coffee, then tea! Fantastic. I asked Henry to stop at by a field of tea bushes to take a picture of my favourite drink (maybe even more important to me than beer...). A lady came over to chat, and climbed into the field to pluck a three-leaved tip for us; she then told us how she worked on that plantation as a picker, and described the whole process from picking through processing to the final product. Only the three leaves of the tip are picked, and each leaf gives a different grade of tea (largest leaves = lowest grade; small leaf/bud = highest grade). After her little speech, her bag opened to reveal large plastic bags of genuine Kenya tea! I bought a half kilo bag, probably for a few times the going rate as I was so excited to be able to buy tea from the source! I was assured that it was of course the best grade....
After an hour or so more, once we had emerged from the mist, we stopped at Thompson’s Falls (named after the same Thompson of Thompson’s gazelle fame). Quite impressive, but, as with many of these stops, the hard sell from start to finish. In the end, we did actually buy a pair of carved wooden book-ends...
We moved on, still heading north, until eventually we reached another small set of stalls at THE EQUATOR! I had always wanted to cross the equator by foot, so I was again rather excited by the whole experience. We watched a young local go through a demonstration of the Coriolis effect using a bucket with a hole in and a match...and it worked! I was amazed! As water drained from the bucket through the hole, the floating match started to rotate one way north of the equator, the other way south of the equator, and not at all directly on the equator. Science in action!
Moving on, we soon reached the Aberdare Country Club a rather opulent, though aging club in the Mount Kenya foothills, complete with golf course (including free warthogs on the 17th and 18th greens) and tennis courts. This was just our drop-off point for the next part of the journey, but more of that later.... While we waited for others to arrive, we wandered the gardens, finally settling on a terrace with a beer and a terrific view out over the lower hills and the plains beyond, where it was possible to make out giraffe amongst the bushes. We also had lunch there, which was the best meal so far...an excellent buffet, including tropical fruit crumble and custard!
By the early afternoon we were getting a little restless, when finally the onward transport arrived. After a rather chaotic hour or so, the vehicles left with about 60 of us on board, to take us to the Ark hotel, in Aberdares national park. The drive took us deep into lush rainforest, and more rain, to a hotel shaped like Noah’s Ark (allegedly) which overlooks a watering hole and salt-lick. After a little more chaos, we checked in and joined the Ark’s “captain” for tea and biscuits on the terrace overlooking the waterhole. Already there were three large male elephants scraping around in the mud, and they were soon joined by a couple of massive buffalo. From the ground floor, we were no more than 10 ft from them, and from the hide on the ground floor, closer still (and also able to hear their breathing!). We also walked out along a wooden walkway that has been built, to watch bird-feeding. This brought hundreds of birds down from the forest, including rather endearing, fluffy long-tailed mousebirds!
We sat and watched for a while before dinner, and returned afterwards (with a warming Drambuie from our secret supply) staying until about 11:30. In that time, we saw a small cat-like genet and a few hyenas (or a single hyena walking in loops...) but none of the big stuff! A late wander out along the walkway netted us a siting of a bushbaby, with huge orange eyes shining through the darkness in the light of a torch.
The rooms ar Ark are equipped with buzzers, so that if anything exciting is spotted over night, guests are informed and can get up if they wish. And, as you might expect, just as we dropped off to sleep (about 12:15), the buzzer went. Two buzzes: that meant rhino! So we pulled on our coats and rushed to the veranda, to see two black rhinos, a mother and calf, approaching from the bushes. They walked down to the water, hada quick drink, turned and walked away. Although they were just visible in the bushes for some time afterwards, the “close-up” view lasted for no more than 2 minutes, and many people missed it!
The rest of the night went undisturbed, so still no elusive leopards....
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