Nanyuki and Sweetwaters

The house near Nanyuki

Neighbouring farmhouses and lavender farm

watering hole at Sweetwaters

hyrax sharing the Powers' tent

We set off on Monday morning (the Power family and I), heading for Nanyuki on the other side of the Aberdare Mountains, via Nyahururu and Happy Valley (of White Mischief fame, apparently, though that didn't mean a lot to me until I looked it up). Our first destination was a house in farmland near Nanyuki owned by the parents of a Turi pupil, but empty while they were on holiday. It was a beautiful house, with colobus monkeys visiting the trees in the garden, and scenic walks beyond. Mount Kenya was visible from the bath tub! After a couple of days there, we headed for Sweetwaters tented camp. Again, not like camping at all, really; very smart ensuite bathrooms at the back and proper beds with sprung mattresses - such a luxury after the hard mattresses provided here at school. The tents under their banda roofs are arranged around a watering hole which is constantly visited by warthogs, zebras, waterbucks and numerous birds. The warthogs and waterbucks graze around the tents in the evening and the tree hyraxes are under the banda roofs (though outside the zipped up tents, fortunately), actually sharing the accommodation. Their funny grunting is very loud for such small animals and woke me up a few times.
We had a couple of safaris and saw huge amounts of Thompson's gazelles, impala, giraffes, jackals and zebras as well as eland, a hartebeeste, many white rhino and two elephants. I'm slightly regretful that I still haven't seen any big cats... there was a female lion with cubs about, but we weren't in the right place at the right time. It's a very big place indeed; in fact we got a bit lost at one point and had a very bumpy, skiddy time trying to regain one of the main tracks.
The journeys there and back were very bumpy too, lots of being thrown about. Back at Turi now with another two weeks of vacation to catch up on rest and plan the next term.
Easter Sunday tomorrow: Service in the chapel by my back gate and lunch at my next door neighbour's.