For the third week of our holiday, Justin, Brigid, Sarah and I went to Uganda for a 7-day beginner white water kayak course on the Nile River. The kayak school is at Bujagali Falls, not far from the town of Jinja (about 2 ½ hours drive east of Kampala). They have an excellent set-up there, with a number of choices of accommodation and places to eat on site. We almost didn’t need to leave the place (except that we had stupidly forgotten to change any money at the airport and had no Ugandan currency - a major pain in the behind [View Full Entry]

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After Mt Kilimanjaro, we spent a night in Moshi, and then 2 in Arusha for a bit of R+R before continuing the travels. Following some shenanigans on the part of Brigid, Simon and Whitley (can anyone fix curtain rails?) and some home surgery on my toe (thanks, Justin!), we said goodbye to Simon, met up with Sarah and went on safari… Our 4-day camping safari of Northern Tanzania was run by a guide called Severin and his trusty cook (why are sidekicks always trusty?), Felix. After making a detour through the suburbs of Arusha to pick up Severin’s sleeping bag from [View Full Entry]

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Hi all! We’re now back in Kilifi after our big trip. I’m going to do as Brigid did and write a separate blog for each part of our trip (and backdate them, sorry). Justin and Whitley arrived in Kenya on September 4th - David drove me down to meet them in Mombasa on the newly done up Malindi-Mombasa road. Thanks to the road works (which happened as the President was due to visit Mombasa, apparently), it now takes less than an hour (instead of over 90 minutes) to get there, and it’s a much more pleasant trip. It made for an [View Full Entry]

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Hi all! Been a while since I posted a blog - there is a lot to catch up on. Here goes... August was supposed to be a quiet month in the lead up to our big September holidays. So much so that Brigid felt it would be a good time to enforce a beer and soft drink ban on herself post Rod’s departure given that the previous month had seen many a beer consumed. Didn’t quite turn out that way, though. Here’s a selection of August highlights… The start of August saw the last few days of Rod’s visit and our [View Full Entry]

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The wildebeest migration to Masai Mara is sometimes described as the eighth wonder of the world. We were lucky we had timed our trip to coincide with this event, as a wonder it certainly is! We flew into Masai Mara on Thursday morning in a 20-seater plane that flew low enough to allow us to see the thousands of animals that dotted the park. We were picked up at the airport by John, who was to be our driver for the next few days, and went on our first drive. The next couple of days were spent alternating between game drives [View Full Entry]

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So.... Kenya seems to have gone crazy in the last few days. A law-making, law-changing frenzy is in place. Here's a sample... 1. Maternity care (ie having a baby in a public hospital) is now free. Actually, all public hospital care has recently become free here, which is a very good thing. When we first arrived, there was a big board out the front of the hospital with costs on it. Now there are signs everywhere saying 'usilipe hapa' (don't pay here). For interest's sake, a 'major operation' used to cost the equivalent of $60AUD. I'm not sure what constitutes major, [View Full Entry]

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Hi dudes! We’ve really been living it up lately - have had another lovely weekend away, this time to Diani Beach and Shimba Hills on the south coast of Kenya. Had another early start on Friday morning, arriving at Mombasa airport in time to meet Rod’s flight from Nairobi. After picking him up, we headed further south via taxi, then the Likoni ferry (a large boat that crosses the stretch of water separating Mombasa from the mainland about every 15 minutes, ferrying cars, bikes and hundreds and hundreds of people at a time), then a matatu (a fairly full-on welcome to [View Full Entry]

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Sooooo… we’ve just been to Zaaaaanzibaaaaaaaaaar… what a great name for a place. What a great place it is, too… Dad, Liam, Brigid and I got up early on Thursday morning to get to Mombasa airport in time for our flight. Unfortunately Precision Airways did not live up to its name that day and we waited in the airport for 5 hours before our plane finally departed. But the first glimpses of the island from the air were enough to make us forget the boredom of the day - the ocean in all colours of blue and green, white beaches and [View Full Entry]

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Don't just stand there, bust a move! Africa » Kenya » Coast By Katherine Howell July 11th 2007 Katherine HowellFor those of you who are not sick of photos of the kids, here are a few more. Brigid, Liam, dad and I went to the orphanage to watch a dance class there. This was a new thing for the kids - a woman Margaret knows volunteered to [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! I've received that many emails telling me how long it is since I've written a blog, that I'm beginning to think it's true. Anyway, am planning on cheating slightly and doing some backdating, so hope it's not too confusing.... So, the big news is that dad and Liam have arrived! We had a bit of a mad rush to organise things for their arrival We are now being fully in the swing of the Kenyan way of doing things - ie very slowly. That will, at least, remain our excuses for being total lazy sods and foregoing organisational [View Full Entry]

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