The Ultimate Off-the-Beaten Track, Multigenerational Adventure… in Kenya

Christmas comes but once a year and after 45 years of buying my parents hit-or-miss gifts (mainly miss if you count the plastic knives, plastic jewellery or the ultimate … a gothic necklace), experiences have taken over, and the poor things have to spend it with us … yes my husband & I and the wayward wee ones all jump on board!

2020’s Christmas adventure to Amboseli & Tsavo came true in February 2020, just before our lives changed forever.

After an easy & smooth-for-Kenya drive from Nairobi (Kenya’s capital city) to #AmboseliNationalPark (one of Kenya’s best-known parks, known for its incredible views of Mt. Kilimanjaro and an enormous amount of easy-to-see wildlife🐘🐂🦩🐆), we were collected by the lodge safari-vehicle to take us to the lodge. Now that was an experience 😲 possibly the worst road in Kenya we were NutriBulleted for an hour or so before we landed at the unique, interesting & rather beautiful #ElephantGorgeLodge; the kids in heaven after such an ‘adventurous adventure’, the adults … stiff … but happy!

The lodge itself is all about the views …. and what incredible views they are; Amboseli in one direction and Mt. Kilimanjaro in the other. The bedrooms, in my opinion were absolutely heavenly, comfortable, modern & with much glass walls the views made your eyes water (nb. if you travel here when there is a full moon, you can see the mountain all night too!!!); the team were absolutely exceptional …. and the activities …. well this is what made us even happier. Set on Noolarami Conservancy, a little conservancy just SE of Amboseli National Park, we were simply blown away by the incredible guided walks and sundowners on the conservancy (stretching our legs, letting the kids scream around without having to try to contain them, bush olympics, clambering on rocks, learning about local medicines etc. etc.) and the magnificent game drives into the very nearby national park, Amboseli. This gorgeous park goes from strength to strength in my opinion, it gets better & better; better views, the wildlife we saw was completely unbelievable, the birdlife next to nothing and the infrastructure was pretty dam good too!!!

After three days here, we were encouraged to drive the scenic route to the next gorgeous lodge, Kipalo Hills, a little lodge bordering Tsavo West & East National Parks. A full day’s journey; if we felt we’d been nutribulleted before, we were in the commercial version now, toss in wining, winging, scrapping kids, a disgruntled husband who would have preferred the main road in his fast car and nearly Octagenerian grandparents with joint-stiffness … quite the cocktail-of-fun!!! But WOW what a journey, beautiful, incredible, diverse and indeed adventurous … with a surprise lunch on a river-bed on the way. I love an adventure!

Oh we loved #KipaloHills, we did, we did!!! A gorgeous little lodge perched on the side of the Mbulia Hills, again with fantastic views looking out across the 12,000 acre Mbulia Conservancy towards Mt Kilimanjaro in the distance. #Kipalo is just my sort of lodge, it is: