Day 139: Castle Forest Lodge to Lake Bogorio

We set an alarm for 07:00 with the idea of leaving by 08:00. Since it was basically our first morning packing up ‘on-the-road’ we only managed to leave by 08:40. We’ll get the hang of it soon.

For the first few kilometers we drove in thick fog with very little visibility. Later it opened up and even got quite hot.

We drove for 200km on tar roads, mostly the B5, through Nyeri and Nyahururu before T4A led us to the C51, a gravel road that would last for 80km and more than 3 hours. We stopped at the beginning of the gravel road for a short lunch, eating the left over food from the previous two days. One chicken wing, half a braaibroodjie, one sausage, mieliepap and two slices of bread.

The gravel road soon turned into basically a two-spoor track with the rest of the road being too rocky or two steep or both.

Halfway we suddenly had amazing views of the plains and lakes down below.

We didn’t even know we were high up on a plato. The going got very slow and Hugo had to engage low range to help assist with the steep downhills over loose gravel and rocks. We thought we reached the bottom as the road was level again for a few kilometers, but then we reach the end of another plato and could see Lake Baringo in all it’s glory down below. The second pass was even steeper and rougher downhill.

We also haven’t seen such low population density since Namibia. If the road wasn’t as long and arduous we would definitely recommend this pass as a very scenic alternative. The landscape, views and remoteness are simply amazing.

We finally made it to Lake Bogoria Spa Resort after following Open Street Maps for the last 14km through T4A’s white canvas.

On iOverland several people mentioned only paying 1000 KES for camping after some negotiation, but we couldn’t get it lower than 1200. Perhaps we are just not that good at negotiating. The camp ground is on nice grass below trees close to one swimming pool. The ablutions are however the swimming pools’ dressing room and only have cold water.

After the cold swimming pool we tested out the natural hot water pool which were rather dirty and filled with other Kenyan guests.

For dinner we made pancakes, but first the wind came and then the rain. Heavy rain only lasted for few minutes, so we could at least finish dinner. We then played Sushi Go under the tarpaulin while it continued to drizzle.