Nyahururu welcomes Panari

The first school I attended was in Nyahururu, a town lying east of Nakuru located in Laikipia County, in a suburb that is currently called Muthaiga.

I only attended preparatory classes there then my family moved. I have not been to the town since and so, I do not recall a thing about that period of my life and I rely on sparse photos of Nyahururu.

One image that stands out is of my family posing next to a waterfall. From our clothes, it is evident that it was a chilly evening.

The arresting surroundings dotted by evergreen olive and pepper trees paint an upland setting that experiences plenty of rainfall.

My siblings have told me that we had visited a lodge named after the falls which my grown self now knows to be Thomson’s Falls.

A few weeks ago, I attended the launch of the construction of the 163km West Laikipia Elephant Fence which will help in curbing human-elephant conflict in the area and I realised that the lodge has seen better days and is in urgent need of refurbishment.

I guess the proprietors rested on their laurels because it was the only property of its class in the area since it was built in 1931.

As fate would have it, however, I was on the road soon after the launch, heading to this town which is synonymous with white cataracts that plummet some 72 metres on the Ewaso Narok River on the far northern end of the Aberdare Ranges.

Apart from the falls, Kenyans know the town as the home of the late Samuel Wanjiru, the first Kenyan to win the marathon at the Olympics.

It is also infamous for its marauding hippos, and apparently it hosts more than a thousand of the beasts, which were recently ‘blamed’ for dirtying the water and the water treatment charges in the town increased much to the chagrin of residents.

Could revenge be the reason why the resident population hack stray hippos slow to return to cover?

Newest offering

Anyway, itchy feet led me to this town touted to be Kenya’s highest elevated at 7, 556 feet above the sea level to check out their newest offering, accommodation-wise.

The nostalgic excursion took roughly three hours from the capital including a pit-stop at Ol Kalou, turning off the A104 trunk road at Gilgil town onto the Nyahururu-Rumuruti (C77) road.

The destination, The Panari Resort, is located barely two-kilometres from Nyahururu town which has a lively open-air market.

It is hard not to notice the nurseries in the area and I would later learn that Marmanet Forest, 15 kilometres north of Nyahururu, which is a corridor for elephants and hippos, extended over 15,000 hectares of uninhabited land before independence.

It has now been reduced to at least four hectares due to illegal settlements, logging and other vested interests.

British real estate tycoon Lord Harold Samuel would probably agree that the proprietors of Panari Resort have struck oil with this Sh1.2 billion facility that not only boasts an iconic view but is also straddled between counties — in the judicious path of the Mt Kenya-Samburu circuit on the Nyeri-Nyahururu road.

I was famished when I got to the resort and I immediately ordered braised Molo lamb, served with buttered potatoes and roasted vegetables. For dessert, I had an unhealthy serving of Crème brûlée.

I recommend the pan seared Mount Kenya river trout, I had for dinner, for anyone sojourning.

Chilly weather

Pencils have erasers because perfection is a hard sell and Panari Resort’s (and Nyahururu in general) Achilles heel is the chilly weather that visitors have to consciously prepare for and contend with.

Even though this place is just a few kilometres from the equator, the stone fireplace in my room came in handy as did the hot-water bottle tucked in the sheets.

That aside, the practicability of the facility woven in simple opulence is worth the visit. The dimensions of my room were ample even by a travel writer’s standards (I also appreciated the sight of the Ewaso Nyiro and Marmanet Forest).

The solar-heated pool and the jikos set out in the yard adjacent to the Silky Oak Bar and Brown Olive Restaurant were very practical.

Even more real are the family rooms that sensitively overlook the children’s outdoor play area. It has been a minute since I rode a bicycle so it was child-like joy cycling over the cabro-paved tracks when not lazily strolling to and from the rooms to the clubhouse in go-carts.

The daily rate of the Eucalyptus spa is Sh2,000 that I reckon residents will find attractive.

My itinerary read two-nights but an emergency meant I had to leave sooner and that means a visit to the falls is yet to be tackled.

However, I did not leave without sampling Nyahururu’s night life. Though rather quiet, the heart of the town remains alive on weekend nights and the main place is Spanish Club, at Baron Building.

I also looked forward to visiting the National Marian Shrine located in Subukia, 22km from Nyahururu. I understand that besides it being a peaceful area to pray and meditate, it hosts a rather appealing chapel.