7 DAYS SAFARI FROM MOMBASA TO NAKURU (Tsavo East and West NP, Amboseli NP)

Our safari started in the Mombasa area and ended up in Nakuru. The trip was done by people close related to Erikson Rover Safaris Ltd. We were one employee, two directors and the girl friend of one of the directors. We enjoyed the trip, and I will in the following try to give some hints about how to make this route. We did not bring a lot of equipment due to the fact that we were driving an empty car back from a client rent out ending in Mombasa.

Day 1.

We drove for 45minutes from Mtwapa (north coast Mombasa) to Kilifi.

Our car at the lovely beaches in Kilifi

We bought fuel (80 litres)in Kilifi and went through the village Tezo and ended up at the main road to Tsavo East (Sala Gate), Road 146. We spent 4 hours on this trip and we got a little lost now and then due to many roads not marked on the map. The main road from Malindi to Sala gate is in the same bad condition as all other roads.

Quite dangerous to drive in the dark. They hadn’t finished the road work…

We talked with some locals along the way to ask for help but they did not know a lot. We had planned to stay at Crocodile camp close to Sala Gate the first night, but the camp does no longer offer camping.

Picture of “red” elephants

In the souvenir shop at the gate,Engwata Curio Shop, we meet Sila the owner and his friend, and they offered us to camp outside the shop. You may arrange with him on phone 0727-688233. The temperature was hot during the night and we had thousands of mosquitoes hanging around for dinner. It was not a nice night in a small tent (we where unfortunately not using the companies standard tents).

A “friend” in the river close to the gate

Day 2.

The next morning we closed down our camp, and followed GalanaRiveruntil marker number 108 then we crossed, using marker Aruba to Buchuma routes. It’s very bushy and we had to stay on the main roads. We did not meet anybody the whole day, and the dense vegetation makes it hard to spot animals.

We did our camping at the public campsite at Ndololo. It’s a nice and quite place close to the swamp. A couple of hyenas where visiting in the evening. We made the camp fire based on dry droppings from elephants. The night in this area was also very hot. We only used the inner tent (mosquito net).

A modified mountain tent – only the inner part

Our electric cooler had been broken on the rough road, but we had to eat our chicken which did not smell or taste very well. We cooked it for 3 hours, but we still got ill during the night. The lesson is: Always bring some extra cans. We spent 5 hours on our dive from Sala gate to Ndololo.

Day 3.

Next morning we left the camp and drove to Voi for refuelling and buying some food. Then we drove north to Tsavo Gate. We continued our safari for about 4 hours until we reached Finch Hattons.

Finch Hattons is a lovely place in the middle of the bush

It was much easier to spot animals in Tsavo West. On our way we noticed some marks like 13A - it is not on the map. We used our compass and travelled west to get back on track. Some of the roads are very bumpy.From Tsavo Gate we headed towards Kilaguni and Kitani. After Kitani it was only 9 km to the Finch Hattons. It’s an extraordinary place to be, in a quite exclusive home away from home.

Day 4.

Next morning we left Finch Hattons after been checked out by the Kenyan Wildlife Service Officers are staying at Finch Hattons, allowing us to use the shortcut to the main road to Amboseli. This was excellent, and we saved a lot of travelling time on bumpy roads. Our goal was to reach Amboseli NP entering through Oloitoktok gate. We used 4 hours on the trip, including rescuing an almost dead calf of a cow.

The calf before the rescue

The calf had got lost and had dried out and the stomach had become extremely big. We treated the calf by putting pressure on the stomach and then forced it to drink a lot of water. We then brought it into the car and drove it to the closest boma. (village).They where very thankful and will forever remember the Range Rover branded with the name roversafari.com.

…and the calf after the rescue

There have been some clashes between these villages and tourists earlier, but we hope they will be more helpful in the coming years. We found the road to be ok between Tsavo West and Amboseli and we did not use any escorts. We did some game drives in Amboseli NP and went to the public Campsite at marker 37 on the map: Amboseli Community Campsite, Tel: 0735-253530, 0722-867394. It’s located outside the border of the park on the south side. The camp is fencedin because of the vast numbers of elephants in this area. This camp is operated by the Masai community (Lolarrashi/Olgulului Group Ranch). You pay at the camp; ksh 500 per person for citizen or residents/non resident.

Watching for animals in Amboseli

Day 5.

Next morning we did gamedrives and crossed LakeAmboseli to Namanga gate. 2 hours was the travelling time. Marker 120,121 to 123 is misplaced on the map. It was not the dry season but our Range Rover made the crossing with only falling in once. We got it up from the wet sand and moved on in a speed of about 80km/h. If you take this route, please do not stop… If you get into trouble, move left or right, and if it does not work, turn around.

We used 45 minutes on an extremely bumpy road from the gate to Namanga. On roads like this you must travel in a speed of at least 60km/h to reduce the impact of the bumps. We made it! We had to do some fittings in a local garage for about one hour because something was not tightened in the left front wheel after the bumpy road.

A small repair

From Namanga we used 7 hours to Nakuru. We guess about 4 1/2 hours to Nairobi.It’s a lot of road works going on at this road (November 2008). We used the B3 to Ngong, ending up in Karen (Nairobi). The road from Nairobi to Nakuru is now perfect.

Akinyi Odongo, John Kiombo, Thor Eriksen and Stein Eriksen