Travelling off the beaten track to northern Kenya is a journey to another world of extraordinary landscapes of desert and mountain.  

You stay for 3 days at the base of Ololokwe, the sacred mountain of the Samburu.  Highlights of this trip are a dawn ascent of the mountain and a visit to the wonderful Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.

You can extend this trip by 3 days to the Ndoto mountain range, driving further north to the settlement of Ngurunet. There are walks in the foothills or a climb to the summit of Mount Poi.

Our inaugural trip was back in 2021 when we took Matthew Parris and friends. Some of their amazing photos of Mount Poi are below.

But please note that you need to have good knees as Matthew wrote in his Times Notebook:

Hearing about it is not the same as doing it…

We pass milestones in our lives that are a bit sad. Since my last Notebook here a brilliant and unforgettable week in Kenya has intervened, and later I hope to write seriously about China in Africa. But there was a melancholy moment.

All my life I’ve been a “let’s do this!” person, first to volunteer for adventure and last to wimp out. When we reached the welcoming Sabache camp in the Samburu region of northern Kenya, I was all for climbing that great, forested rock plateau, the sacred mountain of Ololokwe, at whose foot the camp sits.

We set out at 4am to clamber up in the cool and (though 72) I kept up easily with my eight companions aged between 23 and 49. Sunrise at the top was amazing, but coming down I fell behind. Though one knee has been fixed the other slows me, and my balance isn’t what it was. Our guide cut me a stick and I was only 20 minutes late for breakfast.

A day later we’d reached the friendly village of Ngurunit beneath the Ndoto mountains which rise, verdant, from parched semi-desert. We saw Mount Poi, a great, sheer rock rising some 2,000ft above the plain and topped with rainforest. I’d been in the group hoping to make the arduous 13-hour climb and descent.

Nobody said anything. Through gritted teeth I said: “I think I’ll slow you too much.” Nobody dissented. I understood. At 2.30am I heard the others unzipping tents and quietly packing rucksacks, and it was nice to roll over and go back to sleep, but . . .

We all greeted the triumphant Poi-conquerors on their return. They’d met an elephant in the dark on their way up and I was as thrilled as the rest to hear the story, but . . .