This was published 13 years ago
Mount Kenya Safari Club, review: Bongos in the mist
African dream ... Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club.
Helen Anderson encounters rare creatures and old-fashioned Hollywood glamour at an equatorial safari club.
There's a tentative tapping, as if someone's unsure whether this is the right time for the morning wake-up call. I pull the curtains and find a marabou stork at the glass door - shoulder high and sinfully ugly. It stares back.
Its double chin under a bald head is as rosy as a rash, its dusty feathers like a cheap black suit. With the disappointed gait of an unemployed undertaker, it turns and walks off.
Though the Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club's 48 hectares are fenced from predators, there's scarcely a moment when the natural world - beautiful, strange and vulnerable - isn't front of mind.
The monstrously large head of a stuffed buffalo sits above the breezy entrance and the porticos bear more trophy heads - wildebeest, cheetah and lion - from the days when hunters stayed here for months bagging beasts. Peacocks are shooed from Zebar, the last word in safari chic, at cocktail hour, when the fireplace is crackling and the long, low thunder of someone's pet lion can be heard in the distance. And the manicured lawns are alive with ducks and ibis, cranes and those sepulchral storks.
Though the club straddles the equator - literally, a long brass strip marking zero degrees latitude bisects the courtyard and snakes under a spreading yellow-fever tree - there is snow on Mount Kenya, which dominates the view from every room.
This morning there are no clouds on Africa's second-highest mountain and the sun rises behind it with the power of revelation.
We steer the horses towards the mountain, past the maze and the new tennis court on which the manager, Rana Mukherji, recently hit a ball around with former Hollywood actor Stephanie Powers, a long-time resident here. The forest of Mount Kenya National Park is close and within 10 minutes we've spotted a white zebra, vervet monkeys and plenty of aardvark burrows in the red earth, sometimes repopulated by warthogs. "Shhhh," says the club's horseman, James. And he points ahead to large - absurdly large - mounds of elephant dung. Fresh.
Mercifully, we don't come across the elephants but there are two armed rangers waiting, just in case, when we stop for a surprise breakfast in a forest clearing. It's not just any breakfast but linen and champagne, smoked salmon and eggs cooked on the spot and strong Kenyan coffee.
Horseriding is one of a raft of activities offered at the club, from nine holes of golf and mountain-biking treks to Swahili lessons and guided bird walks; from white-water rafting and trout fishing to a helicopter ride to one of Mount Kenya's alpine lakes (perhaps an increasingly popular jaunt since Prince William chose to pop the question to his future princess beside Lake Rutundu in October). A rugged four-day climb up Mount Kenya can be arranged from here, or a day of climbing and abseiling on granite cliff faces.
Mount Kenya Safari Club is 220 kilometres north-east of Nairobi and is often chosen as a luxurious pause before or after safaris in Kenya's nature reserves, when a hot-water bottle and a lit fireplace at turn-down will be best appreciated.
It is possible, however, to use the club as a base for game drives: Sweetwaters Game Reserve is about 30 minutes' drive from the club; Solio Ranch is 40 minutes away and the Samburu National Reserve is about 90 minutes away.
Any form of lounging at the club will evoke visions of Hollywood glamour, for there are frequent reminders of its time as the playground of stars, statesmen and their entourages.
In 1959 the club was bought by actor William Holden and he invited his buddies for months at a time. Clark Gable, Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood came and played and their portraits and many more sit beside zebra skins and mounted trophies.
The entire cast of The Lion was photographed during filming on the lawn in front of the main lodge and in my cottage are photos of Holden with Zamba and Tammy, his lions.
These days there are no lions to be seen but through a gate next door, at the Mount Kenya Animal Orphanage, dozens of creatures are being prepared for a return to the wild.
A walk among rare mountain bongos and colobus monkeys, under escort by Patricia the teenage ostrich, is one of the highlights of time at the club. There are African lynx, hyraxes, forest cats, Romeo the African porcupine, a couple of pygmy hippos from Liberia, grey crown-crested cranes with their mardi-gras head feathers and three teenage cheetahs, which sound remarkably like tabbies when they're eating.
In 1967, Holden and some friends founded a conservation reserve and the orphanage on the property, beginning an ambitious breeding program to save the mountain bongo, a large and endangered antelope bearing white stripes on a russet coat, once even more prized among trophy hunters than the big five.
Twenty bongos were captured at Mount Kenya and sent to the US to breed in the 1970s.
The first herd was returned to the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy in 2004 and there are now 60 bongos on the reserve surrounding the club, a few of which can be seen at the orphanage. Education programs run by the conservancy about habitat protection and biodiversity reach 15,000 Kenyans a year.
There are plans, says the conservancy's wildlife manager, Donald Bunge, to return the first 20 bongos to the wilds of Mount Kenya within a year. "This will be a dream come true for us," he says.
Helen Anderson travelled courtesy of Wildlife Safari and Emirates Airlines.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Emirates has a fare to Nairobi for about $2259, flying to Dubai (14hr), then Nairobi (4hr 30min). Fare is low-season return from Sydney and Melbourne. Australians obtain a $US25 visa on arrival. Mount Kenya is 220 kilometres north-east of Nairobi, and close to a domestic airport at Nanyuki.
Staying there
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club cost from $US329. The club has extensive facilities and 120 rooms, including suites, two-bedroom cottages and three-bedroom villas; see fairmont.com/kenyasafariclub.
Touring there
Mount Kenya Safari Club is included in a range of itineraries by Wildlife Safari, a Kenyan travel specialist based in Nairobi and Perth. The 10-day Celebration Safari, for example, includes luxury accommodation at Fairmont Mount Kenya Safari Club and elsewhere, a guide and vehicle, most meals, special events, game viewing and donation to a four-year high-school scholarship for a child. From $7900 a person, twin share. Phone 1800 998 558, see www.wildlifesafari.com.au.
A stitch in time
WITH highland wool, weeds and hard work, the Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers have filled the shelves of their modest concrete shop on the outskirts of town with hand-spun, hand-dyed and hand-woven rugs, homewares and clothing. In the process, they have raised their families alone and educated a generation of children.
In 1977, Annah Warutere, a mother of five, and six women started a self-help project with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa in the town of Nanyuki, near Mount Kenya.
Using the region's fine highland wool, they learnt to spin and weave by hand, and to extract natural dye from cabbage and marigolds, daisies and the cochineal beetle that inhabits prickly pear leaves.
They taught other women, the business grew and the project founded a boarding school for girls.
Now there are 137 women employed in the business, about 60 of whom work from home, and 330 girls at the primary school and a new secondary school.
"I have worked with more than 480 women since the project began," Warutere says.
"I thank God for the chance to do this work."
A visit to Nanyuki Spinners and Weavers is included in some of Wildlife Safari's Kenya safaris. See spinnersandweavers.org; www.wildlifesafari.com.au.
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