Nairobi R&R (bike repairs and recuperation)

The next morning, we headed off on our final approach to Nairobi, we've been waiting for this since noticing the excessive wear on our front tyres. Obviously not one to pass on a photo opportunity, we stopped at the equator to get a flag for the bikes and a photo for posterity.

On approach to Nairobi, we hit our first 2 lane dual carraigeway, it looked as if the Chinese have been really busy in Africa over the last few years. In Nairobi, we got a bit of a lesson on swerving to avoid being killed by cars just about travelling in every direction as the road tends to divert every so often for needed repairs. All of this traffic meant that our bikes became very hot and mine started to overheat, popping up various warning messages on the computer which forced me to stop. As it turned out, I noticed that my fan was just clogged up from the Moyale road, something I should have checked as it had happened to me before. So I was soon on my way again and made it to the campsite in no time.

Jungle Junction (JJ's), the campsite we stayed at also had a garage that repaired damaged vehicles, normally from the Moyale road. We stayed there 4 nights while waiting for all the necessary repairs to be completed, mostly done by ourselves. During the day we would either work on the bikes or take a walk up to the Mall, another first since entering Africa, and boy did it remind my of South Africa. I even spent my birthday there, bought some cakes for everyone in the camp (about 20 people) and got a bottle of champagne from Russian Andrey for getting him through the Moyale road safely. I also got a new tyre for my front wheel, finally, which should last me way past South Africa. While there, a group of 8 riders also on 800gs bikes also came in having just completed the Moyale road and their bikes were really destroyed, oh what a good descision we had made to put ours on the truck.

Big feet or little bananas

We met such nice people at JJ's including an Irish trio who have been travelling since January, a German guy on an Africa Twin (Honda), who had not had a haircut since 1999 and a father son pair who were doing the same trip but reached Burundi and had a crash. The father is 65, and sustained a broken leg from a very low speed fall. They will hopefully complete their journey later next year.

We left JJ's on the 31st October and headed for Lake Naivasha, what a pleasure, green woods, brilliant restaurant, and an amazing boat trip to see some really interesting birds and some hippos. The hippos did not end there though as, while sleeping, Delilah was woken up by some heavy stomping and feeding about 10m away, just behind a little fence, how amazing is that.

The next morning, we were planning to cross the border so we headed in that direction. What a mixture of roads, some of the best I have ridden in northern and eastern Africa and also some of the worst, with potholes and longitudinal rutting being the major problems. It was quite a long push, but luckily in the corner of our eyes we did manage to catch a glimpse of an escaped zebra, this is Africa and everything is possible.

finally some hippos

darkwing duck flies again

what a bird

WOW

did you see the size of that one?