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Published: August 21st 2007
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 Kenya for Rod!), arriving in Diani Beach just before lunch.
We stayed in a place called Diani Beachalets (pronounced beach-a-lets, not beach-chalet), which are quite run down - but still charming - cottages with a magnificent view over the ocean. We were right next door to an environmental project called the Colobus Trust, and there were vervet and colobus monkeys everywhere - including on our dining room table when someone left the door open. Thankfully it didn’t make off with the tim tams that Rod had brought for us!! Had a great dinner on the Friday night at a place
called Ali Barbour’s, which is a restaurant in an open-air cave. Fantastic ambience - eating dinner among big rocks with candles in all the grooves, and a view of the night sky overhead - and the best food we’ve had over here. Kicked back and relaxed on the Saturday - I would have liked to have gone out on the reef as it’s supposed to be one of the best in the world, but the weather was ordinary and we weren’t sure how safe it’d be to be out there in a boat in anything short of completely calm water. On Sunday headed up to Shimba Hills National Park, with our guide, Saidi. Shimba Hills is about an hour’s drive from Diani Beach, up in the hills. From a distance, the area doesn’t look much different to the greener parts of country Victoria, but as you get closer, it becomes clear that it’s actually a rainforest, and that a lot of the trees are palm trees. Was quite a foggy morning and our viewing started off very slowly, but it wasn’t long before we’d seen lots of animals - including elephants, buffalo, monkeys and sable antelope (Shimba Hills is the
Likoni Ferry #3
Sooooo many people. Every 15 minutes...only place in Kenya you can see those). Had a late morning walk down to Sheldrick Falls and back. It is a scheduled walk each day - accompanied by a ranger with a gun in case of coming across wild animals on the path (which happens every two to three days, apparently). Our ranger was a very slight woman with a massive (and very old) gun that I was sure would have knocked her over if she had to fire it (luckily no need that day). We were a motley crew walking down there, with some not really dressed for hiking including a woman in full muslim robes and headwear and another woman in white shorts and strappy heels. It is a beautiful walk down to the 20 metre-high waterfall. Returning from there, we stopped for lunch at the lodge in the park, which looks out over a water hole where we saw eagles diving for fish. In the afternoon, we went back out in the car and saw heaps more animals - Saidi was a great guide and was able to spot things no one else saw despite having to concentrate on driving too. Just as we were heading
out of the park, we came across some giraffes. There are only 5 left in Shimba Hills, so we were quite excited to see two of them. At the end of the day, we got dropped off back at the ferry, and then headed back to Kilifi.
Have 5 days work to cram into the next three before we head off to Masai Mara on Thursday. Can’t wait…
Hope you’re all well and look forward to hearing your news, K x
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