After a utility day in Nairobi (washing, shopping, eating, chatting.....) we're off again - we've decided to head down the coast via Tsavo West park. The issue is that Mombasa is effectively out-of-bounds as the UK foreign office have advised against "all but essential travel" there due to the reent (and not-so-recent) attacks there blamed on islamists. This means that our travel insurance would be invalid if we passed through Mombasa - and anyway Mombasa is apparently a real struggle to get through. We have a couple of options - drive down to about 40km before Mombasa and turn right down about 100km of dirt roads via the Shumba Hills to Diani beach, double back after Tsavo into Tanzania via Taveta, or skip Tsavo and go back through Loitoktok. On the balance of everything we've decided to go through Shumba Hills and see what Diani Beach is like....We got on the road at first light (6am) - very bad traffic through Nairobi but were on the open road by 8 when we pulled over for breakfast and coffee. The trucks and general traffic don't seem too bad today. There is a collossal new road under construction to create a 4-lane motorway between Nairobi and Mombasa - it's definitely needed but is cutting a huge swathe through the landscape.
We got to Mtito Andei gate of Tsavo West park by lunchtime, so ate and went to pay. The freindly guy on the gate charged us for the truck by the seating capacity rather than by weight, meaning we only paid 350 shillings for it (about £2.50!), we still had to pay for ourselves and camping obviously though. Few animals to be seen, we drove east then turned right onto a more minor track - this turned out to have been little used and was an interesting drive through washouts and soft sand, seeing plenty of evidence of ellies having been through, but no actual ellies. We camped at Chyulu Gate, being the only people there - it is a great feeling to be out in the wild camping by yourselves! Strangely after nightfall silence fell - not even any insects calling - very rare in our experience.
We got to Mtito Andei gate of Tsavo West park by lunchtime, so ate and went to pay. The freindly guy on the gate charged us for the truck by the seating capacity rather than by weight, meaning we only paid 350 shillings for it (about £2.50!), we still had to pay for ourselves and camping obviously though. Few animals to be seen, we drove east then turned right onto a more minor track - this turned out to have been little used and was an interesting drive through washouts and soft sand, seeing plenty of evidence of ellies having been through, but no actual ellies. We camped at Chyulu Gate, being the only people there - it is a great feeling to be out in the wild camping by yourselves! Strangely after nightfall silence fell - not even any insects calling - very rare in our experience.