These last 10 weeks or so have been one of the highlights of my life. I have always wanted to do this journey, ever since I was a teenager, but the timing was never right, or I hadn’t the funds - there was always a reason why I couldn’t. But then this chance came and I have so enjoyed fulfilling the dream. If anyone thinks you have to be a young man to do this sort of journey they should think again. Even with more than 70 years behind me I never had a day’s unfitness whatsoever. I was up and [View Full Entry]

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It rained lat night, just as we finished our supper. What a shame, as we had to scurry off to bed. But it didn’t last too long and we slept well. On schedule, we were off for the final day’s drive, firstly retracing our tracks to the Mt Ololokwe turn off and then south on the main road towards Isiolo - where the tarmac started. We have driven over some pretty frightful roads in both Sudan and Ethiopia but Kenya’s roads have been by far the worst. And this last leg, only some 30 miles or so, was almost the last [View Full Entry]

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Traveling this route, as we have done, we expected to meet up with others doing the same sort of thing - and we have not been disappointed. Firstly in Turkey, at the balloon campsite, we met a couple of Dutchmen, Luke and DeeDee on motorbikes whom we expected to see more of as we progressed southwards. We haven’t seen them again, but we know they are ahead of us. In the middle of the Sinai mountains we met a German - this time on a pushbike, would you believe! And we saw him again, a few days later, when we queued [View Full Entry]

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For us, Sarara must rate as one of the loveliest places in Africa, certainly in Kenya. The lodge is exclusive, it can only accommodate about 5 couples, and the facilities are comfortable in the extreme where your every need is pre-empted. We have visited Sarara twice before, but as paying punters rather than passing DIY campers. Its situation in a virgin African landscape, where there is no sign or sound of other human habitation other than the indigenous Samburu tribesmen, makes it almost exclusively unique. The whole area is run as a Game Conservancy project, heavily involving the loca [View Full Entry]

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We had a noisy night with flapping tents and awoke to an even stronger wind and swirling mist coming off the mountain. It wasn’t really cold, just unpleasant. But we were packed up and were off on schedule with a farewell to this friendly, rather isolated but very enterprising Swiss gentleman. We drove for at least 10 miles in the mist southwards into Kenya, descending the mountain all the time. The road here was excellent. But when we got lower down and out of the clouds the road steadily deteriorated into the second consecutive day’s bone-shaking driving. It was not stone [View Full Entry]

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On Monday 26th November I received a CD with a collection of photos going back to the 18th October. These have been added to various entries as best as I could work out where they should live. A couple I am not sure about as the date/time information was missing and the title ambiguous. Andrew [View Full Entry]

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We had all been rather dreading this leg. It has the reputation of being one of the worst roads in Africa, and we were not disappointed. But as we drove out of the town, through a police check, we had to forfeit our passports while they recorded our details. Jeremy and I were then hauled off to meet the local Chief Supt of Police, clearly a very important person, who at great length detailed the position regarding shifta on this road. But because there had been no trouble for several months and because the road was well policed, he would not [View Full Entry]

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The rising sun awoke us to the magical atmosphere of total isolation in the African bush - lovely! We soon packed up and set off, delighted that we had not been “found” in our camp. We drove only a mile or so down the road and were into a small village - how lucky had we been, we asked ourselves! It was only 20 miles or so to Mega and the next village we came to we found there was a deep volcanic crater which produced an abundance of soda which the locals harvested. We got out of our cars to [View Full Entry]

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We took stock of our options today. We decided that Moyale, the Kenya border town, was too far to drive in one day, Instead we elected to get there in 2 easy stages so, on leaving our jacaranda campsite and saying goodbye to the new-found nursing friends, we set of south westwards towards Mega, a town on the main Adis-Moyale road. With the intention of free-camping before we got into Mega. Our tyre-mending adviser in Robe told us that the first part of this road was rough but that the latter stages were good - all dirt of course. He was [View Full Entry]

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This turned out to be one of the most exciting day’s drives of our whole trip. We left Goba early with the target of covering a good distance this day. As we climbed up out of the town, up onto the Sannetti Plateau, the road improved and we were now well over 13,000 ft in brilliant sunshine shining on moorland where the air was so clear you could see for miles. As we looked back we could see the clouds from a new angle - from on top! This was the place where we might see the unique Ethiopian wolves but, [View Full Entry]

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