After settling ourselves into Namagongo for the night, and finally meeting Lara (the recipient and caretaker of Hilary), Chloe and I set about making a plan. She wasn't out for long, so despite having some agri stuff in the pipeline, we decided to head to Jinja the next morning. I'd also wangled a contact for Jinja through friends Ben & Kate so I was always planning on heading there at some point. It's a bit of a faff to get to Nile River Explorers, and seeing as it lay east, and thus on my route, we agreed that, despite agonising hours apart, I would cycle Tina whilst Chloe used a mixture of motorcycles (strictly in a passenger sense) and taxis to get there. I didn't get away at quite the early hour hoped for as we chatted for a bit and had some breakfast, but was on the road by 9. It wasn't Kampala central, but it was still rather busy and I also got a bit lost and had to go back for my turning. Once on the Jinja road it was pretty straightforward. As I left town and the traffic lessened a bit, I could look about a bit more. Scenery was nothing to shout about: we were in Sugarcane country which is basically just really tall grass that blocks your view. I'd ordered a new chain for Chloe to bring out, in an attempt to avoid cog wear and having to replace everything when in the UK. I'd put the chain on the night before, and it looked fine, but upon setting off, it started skipping on the middle (and most worn gears). Despite the chain situation grinding my gears (both literally and figuratively) I was making good progress, and with only 80km to do, apart from a few rolex stops, I kept at it. I didn't have my wing mirror on for the first leg, which made the traffic a bit spicy, but I soon found that a good indicator of whether anything was behind me or not (apart from the hooting of course) is that the oncoming traffic starts overtaking into you. This also riled me up a fair bit, and the worst offenders got a bit of abuse. However, they just plough on oblivious, serenely forcing me onto the hard shoulder. They also seem to do it to the bodabodas (motorbikes) so in the end I came to see it as nothing personal, just inconvenient. Despite a bit of ducking and diving, I was flying along - at this point I should mention that Dad was a far better bag man than Chloe, as he took all my panniers, but Chloe made me travel fully loaded, carrying everything myself - and averaged 23,5kph for the 85km stint. That was despite snapping the new chain - discarded at the roadside in disgust - and some dirt road. Such was my progress, I was confident I was ahead of Chloe so stopped in Jinja for a rolex and market perusal. The fresh pineapple in these parts is bloody great, so I wandered off onto the market for a bit of that. There weren't many about, and the first guy tried to charge me UGX 7000 for a pineapple. No chance, Sir - 4000 is my best. For this he offered me a measly pineapple-ette so I told him to keep both of his fruity items. This guy was right at the entrance to the market, and when I couldn't see any more I began to panic mildly. Still, I'd rather go without my 5 a day than be extorted for it. Luckily right at the back there was another guy. Not as cheap as the bike vendor guy, whose prolific trade we saw in the pineapple detritus littering the road for miles, but I got two for 7000, cut up and bagged for my convenience. I then headed up to camp and claimed first place in the race to Jinja. Once at camp, I set about trying to get hold of Jon the SA owner so that I could ingratiate myself for discount. He was in SA, so I had to settle for Richard the Ugandan. Nice chap, and very organised, but I feared to choose the accommodation type until the Mrs arrived. I headed to the bar and got myself an ice cold Club draft (a novelty in itself as normally bottled but Nile Breweries is only about 10km away). Shortly afterwards Chloe arrived, and after swiftly making it clear she didn't enjoy the taxi ride, and finishing my beer, chose the river view safari tent for our sojourn. No complaints there, and it was nice to link up with another big African river after so long away from the Zambezi. We had some more beers and moved into the tent before it started raining. Classic Uganda! Still, our enthusiasm at being reunited wasn't to be dampened, until Chloe took a nap of course. Classic again! The grueling taxi ride had really knocked it out of her, and obviously not wanting a grumpy fiancée on my hands, I went exploring once the rain had stopped. I'd also got Chloe to bring out my binos (along with mini speakers, chocolate and a bike pump) so it was nice to do a bit of birding. The place we were staying, whilst not the only place to stay, is certainly the place to stay in Jinja: it's quite large, and invariably frequented by the type of people who annoy me (one Pom springs to mind, dressed in those horrendous gap yah trousers, a Uganda t shirt, bum bag, and finally his own personal helmet for the bodabodas). The music was a bit loud, and went on for a bit longer that an old bastard like me would have liked, but it was quite fun people watching and taking the piss. That more or less concluded the first day and night. Next day was a lazy start as it was rainy and misty, but I organised a wash for Tina and to go tubing in the afternoon once it brightened up. That, I must say, was a very pleasant activity. We went local rather than with NRE, so after picking up our truck inner tubes we were ferried down to the river on boda bodas and plonked in the river at the local washing spot. We spurned the lifejackets, and I must admit I wasn't convinced about the need for Julius the safety kayaker, but he turned out to be mostly a tow for us when the current wasn't favourable. Beers were included in the price so we were soon sipping on Nile Specials and Clubs as we drifted down. We stopped for another shitty cave, which I ventured into. I'm not sure whether it's just chance that both Ugandan caves have been intensely underwhelming. Are they easily impressed by caves, or just mugging tourists off? Probably the latter, but at least we'd not paid specifically to see them like we had in Fort Portal. The next day we continued the aquatic theme with some SUPing (Stand Up Paddleboarding). I wanted to tackle the rapids on them, but Chloe, being the Diva she is, doesn't like getting her hair wet so that was a no go. The romantic option was a sunset SUP on the Source of the Nile with drinks, but they wanted $75/pp which I thought rather ridiculous. My haggling here worked to some extent, but $60 each was still rather extortionate. We settled on hiring one and paddling about on the Bugigali Lake at the bottom of camp. This suited Chloe much better as she just lay on the front of the board sipping beer as I paddled her around. I struggled with the thalweg, even on the still ish Lake but we saw plenty of Malachite (Pied are abundant in almost pest-like proportions) Kingfishers which was nice, and some otters again. After some intense relaxation on Chloe's part, and exercise on mine, we headed back to land. Where we were staying had a zip line into the river, so I gave that a go. Very fun indeed, but on the third go rather than hang on until the end, I decided to go for a drop. I had spun round backwards, and must say it was a rather ungracious and painful landing as I backslapped onto the water from height and at speed. It bloody hurt my neck, but probably my pride more, so I had to have a fourth go to atone for the folly of the third run. I held on until the bitter end again on the last run. After that we headed into town for a change of scenery, me on Tina so that I could set off from Jinja on the 2nd easily, and Chloe on a boda boda. We had a decent pizza and good, by Ugandan standards, sunset overlooking the source of the Nile. We then rode 3 up on a boda boda home That evening we met the rafting guys and had a few beers with the Saffers who run the camp that Pete had put us in touch with. Part of this tactic was to convince Chloe to agree to rafting the rapids down to the Hairy Lemon, the island we were to spend our last 2 nights on. It's about 40km downstream, and the best way to get to the island as it’s a mere 300m stroll and 1 minute paddle in the dugout to the island, as opposed to bodaboda, matatu and bodaboda. Aside from the Klippie and cokes slurping Saffers, there was a Mommy, George, who was a top engineer by trade, but cycled from Cape Town to Jinja in 2001. It was interesting chatting to him about how he got one back then. He said most of it was tar, which surprised me a bit, but he did it on a racer and travelled light, so tar was a must I suppose. Chloe remained unconvinced to the last, but I managed to get her on the bus the following morning. We’d been very lucky in managing to get the rafting for free for both of us (Chloe certainly wouldn’t have paid for the privilege, I’m sure), and an added piece of luck, the card machine at Nile River Explorers wasn’t working so the guy only asked us to pay $8 for 3 nights. Bloody mad, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. We happened upon the card playing Belgians that Louis and I met up in Fort Portal at rafting Base Camp, Emily & Sam. Aside from also having a great name, they’re very nice. Alas, we weren’t in the same boat, Davey our guide lumping us in with some fluorescent white missionaries from Tennesse. They were out on some bible, malaria net tour, and clearly didn’t believe in the virtues of a healthy tan! The Nile is a pool and drop river, so unlike the Zambezi, you get nice calm sections where you have an opportunity to relax (or consider your imminent demise at the next rapid you can hear roaring in the distance). The first rapid involved going off a 3 metre waterfall, and whilst that seemed like a pretty stupid idea, is was better than carrying it round the rapid, as we had to do later. This seemed to be a serious rapid, and whilst we came through it unscathed, a couple of boats got stuck on a rock at the top of the falls and another then got trapped under the falls for a bit. This was the boat full of Spaniards, and their incompetence, and propensity to fall overboard would became a theme for the day. All I heard from the portly fella for the rest of the afternoon was a Spanish iteration of ‘I was drowning’ basically. When we rescued him for a second time at a later rapid, he seemed surprised to be informed that it’s a good idea to hold onto the boat if you fall out or it flips. Silly Spanish. We did eventually also flip, which caused Chloe immense distress. I shan’t overly embarrass her by detailing the rapid (get it?) mental breakdown she suffered whilst clinging onto the raft, but suffice to say that it made me feel pretty bad about persuading her to go rafting. After the half day break we were just 3 plus the guide in our boat, so we formed an elite squad of paddlers. That meant no shirking though, and Chloe was often reprimanded for not doing as she was told, whether that was not paddling on the flat sections, or cowering in the bottom of the raft when we were supposed to be navigating the rapids. We did flip again, on the last rapid, but by this time the panic was lessened and we just drifted to the end of the rapid and then got out. For me, I don’t think it’s worth the amount of cash they often charge, but it was definitely a very fun, and indeed novel, way to get to our romantic island getaway. After a nice lunch and a beer, we said goodbye to Sam and Emily, and walked up the path to where the Hairy Lemon was. A quick 2 minute work, and then into a little dugout and across to the Island. Apparently the island was set up by a Pom, and was named after the pub (in Dublin I think) in which he met his wife. Interestingly, the Lemon will have disappeared by next year, as they are building another dam on the Nile to supply the power-thirsty Kenya, and it will be flooded in about 6 month’s time, so let’s hope their matrimony is a a bit more successful than the island venture. It’s a lovely spot, and a real shame that it’s going to disappear, along with the vast majority of the rapids we tackled during the day. The island is basically a shabby chic hippy ish relax-y place, where you camp and all the meals are included. I don’t quite feel that I got full value out of the buffets as they would often run out of food before I was done, but I did secure 25% discount for our two night stay, which was good. It was also needed as they only took cash, cleaning me out of all my remaining dollars basically. We only had one full day there, so we set up the hammock and just relaxed by the waterfall that split the islands up. It’s only little, but rather powerful, having washed one of the other guests over the edge and bruising her a bit in the process. And at various times we both almost suffered the same fate. It’s not called the mighty Nile for nothing! After lunch it, in typical Ugandan style, turned cloudy and rainy. We probably would have got a bit bored, but actually we just sat undercover drinking beers with some other guests staying on the island. We played cards (Shithead, but this time with the correct magic cards, rather than Louis’ generation X version) and moved on to a great board game called Settlers of Catan. It’s a kind of less bellicose version of Risk, where one builds towns and trades in peaceful pastoral goods such as wool, straw (not hay) and bricks. Chloe tends to take such games extremely seriously, which I can’t describe as a fantastically endearing trait, but observing the clash of styles with Andy, the dreadlock mulleted nurse was quite amusing. To say he lacked a competitive spirit, or indeed attention span, would be generous; he was just extremely slow, and didn’t pay attention. However, having caught him sitting in the waterfall naked earlier in the day, surreptitiously trying to put his trunks back on as people talked around him, it was just nice to have him clothed. We would have loved to spend another day or two on the island, but with Chloe now a big dog in the UK property scene, and me racing potential election violence in Kenya, we both had to move on the next day unfortunately. We boda bodaed up to the main road, and then hopped into our respective minibuses which happened to be there just when we wanted them. It was a rather rushed, and indeed public, goodbye, but there we go. I got back to Jinja at about 11 after a pretty uneventful taxi ride. I’d scored a mzungu upgrade and was in the front with some old boy (having booted out somebody else) so it wasn’t too cramped either. I was expecting to take 2 days to get to the border, and was under way by 12:30 after stocking up on rolexes and passion fruit juice. I’d been on the bike every single day for the last 3 weeks before Chloe’s arrival, so a few days off with her wasn’t going to make much difference, but it still took me a while to get back into things. It was a busy road again, especially going out of town, but nothing too bad. After leaving the Nile behind I headed into sugarcane country, with the typically limited views that accompany that crop. Seeing as I was doing a half day, I was pushing the pace a bit, and the ominous looking clouds on the horizon also helped spur me on. I was going through a pretty average looking town, grimacing at the thought of the impending soaking, when I got the biggest cheer of my trip. I don't really know why they started it, but as I was passing the busy part of town they all started shouting and cheering. There must have been a good couple of hundred all shouting and waving at me. I alternated between the royal wave and fist pump as I soaked up the pro peloton support. It was a really awesome moment, and one I think I'll remember with fondness. Not long after that, the rain arrived, jolting me back to the realities of bike touring. By this point I was in the middle of nowhere, and it started to come down quite heavily. I dived off into a lay by, and frantically motioned to the parked lorry that I didn't like getting wet. They opened the door for me and I clambered in to find 2 guys making lunch on a gas stove in the cab. My general experience of African hospitality has been excellent, but I didn't want them to feel obliged so we kept the conversation light - trucking and cycling mostly. As it neared meal time they led with the classic 'Do you eat maize meal?', to which one of course replies, 'Oh yes, naturally. I love a bit of ugali'. Their stove really trumped Susie, being about 100 times larger, and we had a lovely late lunch of tomatoes, aubergine and onions cooked up with reheated dried tilapia and maize meal. Excellent kitchen skills, and I doubt you'll find many English truckers knocking up such a feast, especially in the cab! The rain stopped after about 45 minutes and I was on my way again after turning down a lift to the border. Being on the final stretch now, hitchhiking seemed rather immoral! The rest of the afternoon's riding passed off fairly uneventfully, as I moved from sugarcane into rice paddies. They offer a nicer view and better birdlife, so although a change for the better, the headwind and intermittent rain didn't make things overly pleasant. One thing I did notice that afternoon was the combative nature of the local cyclists. I often found myself embroiled in lengthy battles for supremacy that both lasted longer and were more intense than I'd experienced elsewhere. I must have slogged it out with one guy for a good 15km, picking up and dropping other chancers along the way. We'd form little chain gangs and engage in plenty of sledging (well, I did anyway), which would break up and reform according to the terrain. The chief culprit was quite sneaky, and after realising he had no chance on the hills, would attack me on the speed bump sections as I had to slow down more out of respect for Tina. There were also a few of the classic chain derailings as the single speeds struggled with the speed. All good fun though, and I think I gave a pretty good account of myself really. With all that racing I also managed over 100km, even with the rain delays, and had got all the way to the Kenyan border. For accommodation I picked a place on the outside of town. I went in just to have a look, but they did me a deal on a nice little thatched banda, and agreed to heat up some water for my bucket shower so I was a happy man. For dinner I was escorted into town in search of the mythical Senator beer. I'd seen signs for it all over Uganda but never seen it for sale. Eventually we found one in some shitty bottle store, but it was warm, altogether not worth the search. The bottle cap, for my collection, was also very boring. For food we descended into a pitch black and very muddy market where I ordered chapatti and beans. I treated my guide, whose name I have now forgotten, to a cup of chai with me. Next morning I wasn't away until almost 9, and after waiting ages for some rolexes in town, it was a slow start. Busia seemed to be a bike trading hub, with all sorts of second hand ones coming over from Kenya. They were all hung up or parked along the street, and it looked like there were a few vintage gems, and I was sorely tempted to have a poke around. However, I was running late and had a border crossing to deal with - my last one, no less! I performed the usual ritual of skull disguising and headed on through. It was a one-stop crossing, and not very busy so I was into Kenya, my final, and tenth, country (disregarding Addis Ababa airport) by just after 10. The Kenyan side of Busia was very busy, and extremely muddy, so you had to pick your way between both the traffic and the puddles. That said, it looked like it was shaping up to be a cracker of a day, and it certainly felt good to have made it into Kenya. After wasting a fair bit of time trying to get a SIM card sorted, I was off again. The roads were busier than Uganda, and not exactly in pristine condition, but progress was pretty decent. Roadkill also abounded which meant there was invariably something of interest about, thus making up for the lack of stunning scenery. The first few hours there wasn't much to look at, but my first camels mooching along the side of the road, and a tuk tuk with a coffin on top were the highlights. Other than that I'd discovered that they rather ridiculously didn't have 1,5l bottles of water in Kenya, and that fizzy drinks were basically the same price. I sensed a diabetes epidemic on the horizon! Death seemed to be a theme of the day, with plenty of roadside carcasses, and a coffin-building hotspot punctuating the journey. I then also witnessed a car crash. More of a fender bender really, and they proceeded to block the entire road whilst they argued about it. It got a little heated as I edged my way past, and the prize for the most anguished 'No' goes to the indignant taxi driver whose 'Hapanaaaa' that followed me up the road as he was blamed for the incident. As the day progressed the scenery improved and by 4ish Lake Victoria loomed into view down in the distance. There was then a nice 40 minute descent on nice new tar down into Kisumu. It soon became clear that Kenya, like SA was ahead in development stakes, and Kisumu, which turned out to be a big city really, even had cycle lanes on the approach. I appreciated that, even though it was typically treated as an extra lane for the bodabodas where you didn't have to travel with the traffic, or a parking facility, as otherwise I'd be on the busy dual carriage way. In Kisumu I had a looong wait in the Safaricom shop to register my SIM, but I used the time to figure out where to stay. Maps.me showed a campsite out of down, right down on the lake, so I decided to head down there for the night. It was suitably rustic, off down a dirt road, and turned out to be a lovely spot. The campsite was full of fat old Italian men prancing about in tight panties, which was somewhat offputting. If they'd been young slim ladies I'd have been very happy, but I did wonder whether it was another one of those dodgy European tours, like the French lot in Botswana. Luckily, I was allowed to pitch my tent right on the lakeshore, away from all the showboating, so I set up camp in a secluded spot with views West over the Lake. This produced a rather spectacular sunset, which I enjoyed very much as I sipped on a new and exotic (at that point) Whitecap. I dined there on traditionally prepared tilapia, with the more modern accompaniment of chips, and caught up on my travel journal that had been rather neglected of late. The owner came over and spoke to me for a bit, and although I couldn't be bothered to ask for a refund on camping, I ascertained that my best bet tomorrow was to head for Kericho and that it was uphill whichever way you looked at it. I thought Nakuru was only 100km from Kisumu, but it was more like 220km, so the day I had in hand for the border was now used up here. I was up and away by 8:30, and although the ants had infested my rolex, I soon found food and bought water. A nice lady who I asked for directions took me to a good chapati and beans spot and I dined there well for about 50p. My lady turned out to be a mandazi (doughnut) producer so I stocked up on some of those for the journey. I took a different dirt road and popped out on the ring road SE of the city. The cycle lane soon petered out but by then it was back to single lane traffic. That day was basically heading east from Lake Victoria along the floor of the Rift Valley, and then climbing up out of it to Kericho. I would describe the flat more as a false flat, further hampered by a nasty headwind. I drafted a truck that trundled along at a healthy 28kph for a while, but the going was pretty tough, with the escarpment looming rather ominously in the distance. I stopped for a drink and was immediately approached by one big and boisterous mamma. She was very friendly, but rather crazy. She started off offering to buy me a drink, then asked me to get her one, then she wanted to come and stay with me in Nairobi. She then moved onto my skull and wanted it, or at the very least a piece of it, so that she would become rich and prosperous like me, but became less keen on the idea when I suggested it was more Juju/pagan based than Christian. We had to have photos, and then I pedaled off chuckling, not quite sure what to make of her. The next shot of excitement was being pulled over by the police. Aside from the night in Makuti Police Station in Zim, this was my first detention. I lead with a rather hostile 'What?!', not really wanting to waste my time arguing with coppers, but she said she just wanted to greet me, so I started being nicer. We had a bit of a chat about the route, and which way I should go whilst I munched on a pineapple I'd bought. I was told to carry on straight as the other way was too hilly, so after a bit of a telling off for using my phone whilst cycling (route checking), I was underway again. I'm not sure what her perception of hills was like, but pretty much 5 minutes after carrying on, I passed a 'Climbing Lane Starts in 150m' and that was it for pretty much the next 30km: Up, up, up! To be fair, it wasn't too bad, being quite a civilised gradient, and broken up by a lunch stop along the way: I actually preferred it to the flat, headwind section earlier in the day. I was still quite a tired cyclist by the time I rolled into Kericho though. The day had been a 90km ascent up into the Highlands and tea plantations at around 2500m altitude. As I got into town, it started raining so I hung out under the cover of a cabs point, watching the boda bodas zoom by with their massive umbrellas up to keep everything dry. I headed to Kericho Tea Hotel, which apparently had a campsite. It was a faded colonial gem, which was big and imposing, but clearly not the fancy spot it used to be. I wangled half price camping and they had a buffalo skull rigged with green light bulb eyes so I was sold. I went for tea and cake after a spot a black and white casqued hornbill watching (not Trumpeters, Joost) as it seemed the appropriate thing to do. The fruitcake was extremely light on fruit, but passable. Given my snacking I decided to get Susie out and cook some food for the first time in ages. Nothing fancy - two lots of supernoodles, ex Malawi. After such a delicious supper I headed to the bar and enjoyed a Summit, another new and exotic beer. The next day I was heading for a farm between Molo and Nakuru that Theo my hiking buddy had put me in touch with. I was up early but a very heavy dew meant a slow start drying everything out pre departure. The scenery was absolutely stunning, and rated up there with the most picturesque days, but I really struggled to get going: I felt like I was getting the heavy legs syndrome one often gets on a bike ride as you approach home/the end, but scaled up to tour level. Anyway, I kept slogging it out and inching towards Nairobi. After about 40km I stopped at a t-junction for a drink and some roasted corn. I had a 1,25l of Sprite to take down, so whilst I was chipping away at that Tina drew in a crowd. The Kenyans seem to command a better level of English and we got into some in depth discussions on gears, odometer mileage etc etc. Mid touring conversation, a kid came up to me and shoved a cardboard box in front of me. It contained a couple of white rabbits: not really something I was interested in to be honest, so I politely declined. A few minutes later he asked again, and this time, having disturbed a riveting chat about cadence, I told him to scram - I was hardly likely to purchase a live rabbit as a road snack, was I! A few minutes later I was on my way again, when a guy sprinted past holding a bunch of carrots, which made me chuckle - very Bugs Bunny. The day could be summarised as high altitude undulations, so I was glad to get to Kenana Farm where I polished off the Nightingale's entire lunchtime leftovers, and then headed over to talk farming with one of the brothers. He ran a big row cropping set up with a partner, But had also looked at opportunities in South Sudan due to the high land prices (£10,000/acre - SE England prices!). It was interesting stuff, and in the evening a local (well, Indian actually) flower farmer joined us for dinner so we talked botanicals, birding and Kenyan tribal politics. The election was in 2 days time, and after widespread violence the last two elections, everyone was a bit nervous about the next few days. General consensus seemed to be that Voting Day, the 8th August, would be calm, but from the 9th could be dodgy, so my planned itinerary was to cycle into Nairobi on the 8th and then hole up there with friends Moon & Ed so that I was safe if anything kicked off. Thus far, I'd passed a lot of posters and t-shirts, hooting parades of bodabodas and huge speakers on trucks and bakes spewing forth Swahili political spin. It all seemed quite jolly as far as I could make out, so hopefully it would stay that way. We were up late drinking Tuskers and putting the world to rights, so I wasn't away from the campsite before 9:30, but the day was set to be an easier ride that the last few: about 70km, mostly down into the valley and past the Lakes to GilGil, just before Naivasha. Nakuru caught me by surprise; I was expecting a sleepy, twee little town with fancy safari lodges and game roaming about, but actually it was a massive town with busy dual carriageway and only deadstock about. Heavy leg syndrome pursued me again today, but this time I didn't have nice scenery or quiet roads to relax on, so I can't say I enjoyed that day of riding especially. By far the least pleasant riding conditions I've found on this trip are days when you have a strong headwind as it is super draining and I find it gives me a bad back for some reason. The busy roads were also not very pleasant, with a lot of diving off onto the hard shoulder needed. Taxis have an annoying habit of upgrading their horn so that they sound like some all-conquering land train bearing down on you, and then it's just a pathetic Toyota HiAce that you didn't even need to move over for. Those false alarms began to grind my gears, but better safe than sorry. I did also see two accidents that day - one truck where the back axle had just fallen off (I'm glad I wasn't drafting that one!) and some sort of recent collision. The collision was not really surprising seeing as Kenyans seem to pursue a rather risqué overtaking policy. Bikes certainly don't qualify as oncoming traffic in their eyes, and aside from the wing mirror, a pretty reliable indicator of whether anything is behind you, is if oncoming traffic is overtaking into you. Very annoying but I eventually found out that, unless it was a bus (those okes are just the worst) you could stick to the road and they squidge past you. Basically the day consisted of hammering away into a horrendous headwind, on very busy roads, so I was very glad to jump off the bike by 12:45. Jessie & Jamie had been my main helpers in Kenya, and I was heading to Gil Gil Country Club for Sunday lunch with my hosts for the evening Gordie & Susie Millar. Like many of my hosts I'd never met them, but they were very lovely indeed. We had a boozey afternoon with the expat set, where I was unable to buy even a single beer! The day ended on more of a damp note though as Tina and I got thoroughly wetted sitting in the back on the Cruiser on the way home. We took the dirt road home, which although not the comfiest, did yield a rare Zedonka sighting. For the uneducated, the Zedonka is the lovechild of a donkey and a zebra! This one was mostly donkey looking, but had stripey zebra legs and was running wild with his black and white mates, which I suppose beats towing a cart around by a mile. At the Millars we followed up Sunday Roast with a four-course (if you include the avo) dinner and a roaring fire. I also had my own little en suite abode, and this was my first taste of luxurious house-living in quite a while, so thank you to the Millars. The next morning I scrounged a lift in with Gordie and had a look around his flower farm for a couple of hours. Very interesting stuff, and rather hi-tech too, with fancy Israeli fertigation units and top-secret flower strains and specialist breeders. The plan for the rest of the day was to go and see a big outfit called VegPro which wasn't far from Sanctuary Farm where I was staying that night (thanks to J&J again) and then cycle round the beautiful volcanic NP Hells Gate. However, my schedule slipped and my mate at Vegpro got grumpy with me for being late and told me not to come. That was a blow, but I was also feeling rather lazy and I'd heard tomorrow's climb up the Escarpment was quite horrendous, so thought it might be a good idea to conserve some energy for the final push. A quick google revealed a $26 entry fee for a foreign Mzungu so I binned the Hells Gate cycle and headed straight to Sanctuary Farm. There I struck it lucky - £20 all you can eat Otto Lenghi style buffet. The food was about as good as the view really, overlooking Lake Naivasha with game roaming around everywhere. I proceeded to eat far too much and give myself stomach ache for the rest of the day, but I'm a stickler for value, so worth it in my books! Whilst digesting my mammoth meal, I decided to see if Gareth at VegPro had forgiven me yet. He said I could come down, but needed to do so now, so I jumped on my bike, cycled to the gate and then jumped on a bodaboda for the 10km to the farm. Gareth is in charge of a huge operation of about 2000 acres growing vegetables for export. It's a very impressive (they have their own biomass power plant) and interesting set up, growing a bit of everything really. They're so large that they deal with Supermarkets directly, but they still have to overplant their desired quota by 50% due to disease and rejection rates for imperfect looking produce. Bloody madness, but there we go! My host Guy at Sanctuary Farm put me in another private residence and kept me in beer and fed for the evening which was very nice. Getting spoilt at the end of my trip! Guy is a photographer by trade and showed me a picture of the burning taxi he'd seen on the drive back from Nairobi that day. That took macabre to another level I thought, and told him so. However, that brought us onto the topic of roadkill so I promised to share my album with him for perusal. Maybe I'll graduate to car crashes and human corpses one day, but not just yet. Because my last day in the saddle was election day, I decided to make lunch and use up the last of my food pannier in case nothing was open along the way, so I made some tuna pasta in my fancy collapsible pot ready for the Champs Elysee run the following day. Final day departure was 0930 hours in cold, overcast conditions. I was cycling in my jumper for the first time in weeks and weeks, and the weather seemed to reflect the impending demise of my cycling routine. I suppose I was feeling a mixed bag of emotions - a growing sense of achievement and pleasure at being so near the end, but also lamenting the end of the adventure. I know I didn't enjoy the first 25km one little bit. Cold and miserable with a bleak flat landscape and the worst headwind yet. A sign forbidding 'open defacation' and a simple 'Bring it home' text from Pinhead Dave were the only highlights of the first few hours. The roads, and indeed everything, was dead quiet, with the only traffic really being the stretch Land Cruisers ferrying Chinese tourists around. Things did improve though, as I approached the escarpment and got out of the worst of the wind, and it was actually a relief to start going uphill and see what this hill was about. I'd heard a lot about this gruelling Escarpment climb from a lot of people, and whilst general experience suggests that they either exaggerate the hill, or don't appreciate that I am by now extremely well inured to cycling up hills. It was nothing too strenuous really, and the fact that it is mostly downhill to Nairobi after coming out of the Rift Valley, kept me going. I stopped at a viewpoint and ate my distinctly average pasta overlooking the valley floor below from which I had just come, and reflected on the trip thus far. I wasn't feeling melancholy as such, but I enjoyed having the day to myself to mull things over a bit, rather than having lots of things going on and locals about. After a peaceful lunch I carried on up the Escarpment road and happened upon some open stalls. I got hollered at by a bunch of whities in one of those big overland trucks as I carried on up the hill. As I passed through the more touristy stretch I passed a few stalls selling bits and pieces. Obviously my appetite for curio shopping had been severely curtailed by the fact that I would have to lump said item across Africa for weeks, but I thought on the last day, on the last portion of the big hill, I could manage a little treat. I didn't want the usual tat, but some strange woolly hats with ear flaps caught my eye. I'm very attached to my, now very faded, Proteas floppy sun hat, but I thought I could use something a little warmer for the cold English winter months. Apparently the Turkana tribe up North wear them in winter, so that was good enough for me. After a protracted haggle with the lady, I set off donning a sheepskin hat. Whilst offering excellent padding in case of a crash, it swiftly became too hot for Equatorial conditions so it went back in the pannier.
After summiting the Escarpment, I had about 40km left, most of it downhill as I was descending from 2000 odd metres altitude, down to Nairobi, which is about 1750m. Things got a little busier, but not much really, and I had the roads largely to myself. This was a good thing as I was basically on motorway for the last 20km or so, and it would not have been safe or pleasant riding on an average day of Nairobi traffic. I'd stayed at Moon & Ed's a couple of years ago, so as I neared Hardy, things began to pop into my recollection. Often not in the order or direction I expected, but I recognised them none-the-less. I got into Nairobi by about 2pm, having covered the last 95km of the trip in pretty decent time. It felt a little bit strange to be finally finished after about 105 days on the road, but it was certainly great to be ending amongst friends and somewhere vaguely familiar. That was especially the case as I'd got about a week in Nairobi to kill before my flight on 12th August. We were straight into the social scene, and although you couldn't buy booze due to elections, we managed to rustle up some Tuskers and go to not one, but two, parties. At the latter I proceeded to justify eating the bulk of the pizza the guy made through my feat of cycling endurance. I probably won't be invited back, but I sure was hungry! The next day I went for a little cycle, admittedly mostly because I had passed a fancy looking bakery and really wanted one of those strawberry creme patisserie tart things, but probably also because it felt a bit strange not to have any more cycling to do. Withdrawal symptoms would be an overstatement I think, but I'd really enjoyed my trip so it wasn't like I never wanted to see a bike again. I also have a tour of the Pyrenees coming up in September so couldn't just flop as I'd die in the mountains otherwise. To my immense disappointment the bakery was shut, but on the ride I came across a chameleon crossing the road. Without getting too wiffy, finding a chameleon on my last cycle of the trip had a nice symmetrical ring to it as I'd found one in Thabazimbi when I was on a training ride in SA before departing. Probably reading far too much into it, but it felt like a proper end to the cycle, rather than just jumping off the bike the day before and taking down a beer!
1 Comment
|
AuthorSam Brook - A mildly Africanised Pom about to cycle from Joburg to Nairobi. Archives
August 2017
Categories |