Fishing Lodge
It’s a popular place this Fishing Lodge in the Aberdares NP, we tried many times to book it but it was always full, until, finally, we just asked when it was available in the next 3 months and picked a date. And then organised our plans around that date…
The Fishing Lodge is located in the southern half of the Aberdares NP. If you imagine the park to have the shape of a letter P, it is located in the bottom of the leg of the P – the round part being what they call the Salient. The Salient is very different from the rest of the park, it is lower and has more tree cover. The Fishing Lodge is in the area that is a lot higher, and colder at night, there are moorlands here, and steep ravines with waterfalls. It also has some of the best hiking trails in Kenya and world-class fly-fishing for trout, but the amount of visible wildlife is probably higher in the Salient.
We drove up in 2 cars, Hafiz and Marcel in one car and Helen & James jumped in with us and before 11am we were already at the gate closest to the Fishing Lodge. It is a beautiful drive to the lodge, and the location of the lodge itself is stunning. Wide open vistas across a huge valley from the verandah at the front of the lodge. To our surprise there were 2 almost identical houses next to each other, the other one also with the capacity to sleep 6.
stunning view from our fishing lodge
We had a tasty lunch on the verandah before exploring the area. We hiked to beautiful waterfalls, drove around the, sometimes muddy, tracks to look for wildlife and then came back to the lodge for dinner followed by drinks and stroopwafels by candlelight.
lunch on the veranda with Marcel, Jon, Helen, Hafiz, Jude and James
beautiful waterbuck in the rain
heating up the mini stroopwafels over the candles
The next morning only Jude was keen enough to get up at 6am for an early morning game drive, so she went out on her own, exploring some new trails, watching the wildlife wake up and the sun rise before, finally, returning around 10am. Everybody was awake and already had breakfast, so Jude quickly ate something before we all went out for another drive and walk to yet another set of waterfalls.
Mt Kenya is visible from the Aberdares
curious buffalo on the morning drive
young hyena enjoying some sunshine
relaxing on the veranda
viewpoint
red hot poker (kniphofia)
one of many waterfalls in the Aberdares NP
the team – Helen, Jude, Hafiz, James, Jon and Marcel
beautiful bush buck
The caretakers of the lodge kindly allowed us to stay until after lunch, and Marcel cooked up a storm. A delicious Kenyan lunch, culinary highlight of the weekend for sure. Although Marcel probably disagrees and thinks the mini stroopwafels were the highlight…
Marcel cooks a delicious Kenyan lunch