A hard but very interesting day. We paid David the campsite manager and set off for Nairobi by 7:30am. Due to the rain, works and weekend traffic the gravel road out was in a worse state - lumpy and corugated in places with some interesting diversions to squeeze through. We had a great view of Kilimanjaro with its snowcap all the way to the tar road where we turned north.
There have been quite a lot of subtle changes in the area to try to mim=nimise conflict between wildlife and humans, there are harmless strips of something, maybe plastic to apparently guide animals away from habitation and towards specific crossing points over the Loitoktok-Emali road which are well marked for drivers.At the first of these crossings we saw four gernuk - one of our favourite antelope - very slender with long long necks, at the next crossing we pulled off the road to adjust the tyre pressures up to tar levels and have coffee. Here we saw two more gerenukand three giraffe. A cattle herder came and asked for water to drink, we gave him a bottle of our finest Eau de Mog (perfectly filtered we hope). Further along the road we saw gerenuk another two times - good to see that they aren't strictly limited to the park.
At Emali we turned off the sane and quiet Emali-Lpitoktok road onto the totally insane and busy Mombassa-Nairobi road. We've driven this road a few times, but are always taken aback by the driving standards - a mix of slow, grinding, heavily loaded trucks hauling uphills, lighter loaded trucks and buses doing crazy overtaking manoeuvres, lines of vehicles coming straight towards us on our side of the road and so on - that's simply how this road is.
In the various towns and villages there are speed bumps, at each speed bump there are clusters of vendors trying to sell mangoes, suspicious looking meat on skewers, sligshots and other stuff we don't want. At Athi River we started to notice that there has been a lot of development since we were last here - mainly functional and ugly - very grim. Many kilometres of urban development into Nairobi - vast sprawling and not very pleasnt for the most part. On entry into Nairobi there were signs warning us that all vehicles over 3.5tons had to pass through a weighbridge - usually at the smaller ones we have a bit of a chat with the operators who then wave us through - not this time - the queues were long and tedious until finally we found ourselves in a lane with a sign on a gantry above with our registration number and a sign towards a lane bypassing the weighbridge. Phew!
In Nairobi we headed back to our favourite lodge - Wildebeeste Eco Camp in Langata, the sams security guard as before opened the gates with a big smile - he clearly remembers us.We camped again in the carpark. After a snack and a cold drink we took a dip in the pool - a welcome addition since last time we were here - Lynita and Alan have been hard at work improving the place. Sue did some bird spotting from the pool, including a hammerkop in the pond right next to the pool and some wagtails coming to drink from the pool itself.
Dinner on the deck at the lodge and we got chatting with Lynita, very interesting. She shares some of our concerns about the way Africa is going - apparently land around the Masai Mara is being parcelled up into private ownership rather than tribal which is driving people to erect fences, create farms and buildings. No apparrent concern for the wilduganda and life in all this.Lynita also impressed upon us how much she enjoyed gorilla trekking in both
There have been quite a lot of subtle changes in the area to try to mim=nimise conflict between wildlife and humans, there are harmless strips of something, maybe plastic to apparently guide animals away from habitation and towards specific crossing points over the Loitoktok-Emali road which are well marked for drivers.At the first of these crossings we saw four gernuk - one of our favourite antelope - very slender with long long necks, at the next crossing we pulled off the road to adjust the tyre pressures up to tar levels and have coffee. Here we saw two more gerenukand three giraffe. A cattle herder came and asked for water to drink, we gave him a bottle of our finest Eau de Mog (perfectly filtered we hope). Further along the road we saw gerenuk another two times - good to see that they aren't strictly limited to the park.
At Emali we turned off the sane and quiet Emali-Lpitoktok road onto the totally insane and busy Mombassa-Nairobi road. We've driven this road a few times, but are always taken aback by the driving standards - a mix of slow, grinding, heavily loaded trucks hauling uphills, lighter loaded trucks and buses doing crazy overtaking manoeuvres, lines of vehicles coming straight towards us on our side of the road and so on - that's simply how this road is.
In the various towns and villages there are speed bumps, at each speed bump there are clusters of vendors trying to sell mangoes, suspicious looking meat on skewers, sligshots and other stuff we don't want. At Athi River we started to notice that there has been a lot of development since we were last here - mainly functional and ugly - very grim. Many kilometres of urban development into Nairobi - vast sprawling and not very pleasnt for the most part. On entry into Nairobi there were signs warning us that all vehicles over 3.5tons had to pass through a weighbridge - usually at the smaller ones we have a bit of a chat with the operators who then wave us through - not this time - the queues were long and tedious until finally we found ourselves in a lane with a sign on a gantry above with our registration number and a sign towards a lane bypassing the weighbridge. Phew!
In Nairobi we headed back to our favourite lodge - Wildebeeste Eco Camp in Langata, the sams security guard as before opened the gates with a big smile - he clearly remembers us.We camped again in the carpark. After a snack and a cold drink we took a dip in the pool - a welcome addition since last time we were here - Lynita and Alan have been hard at work improving the place. Sue did some bird spotting from the pool, including a hammerkop in the pond right next to the pool and some wagtails coming to drink from the pool itself.
Dinner on the deck at the lodge and we got chatting with Lynita, very interesting. She shares some of our concerns about the way Africa is going - apparently land around the Masai Mara is being parcelled up into private ownership rather than tribal which is driving people to erect fences, create farms and buildings. No apparrent concern for the wilduganda and life in all this.Lynita also impressed upon us how much she enjoyed gorilla trekking in both