Van Wicker’s Cave

Unusual Attractions Kericho

Van Wicker’s Caves: An Emergency Foxhole

Put together around 1956 by Major Douglas Van Wicker, a settler farmer, who used the underground hiding-place in the 1950’s during the country’s state of emergency and suppression of Mau-Mau insurgency. With most of the Mau Mau fighters hidden deep in the forests of central Kenya and neighbouring regions, it proved difficult to hunt them down. By 1952, the conflict was threatening to spiral out of control, forcing the colonial government to declare a state of emergency, shocking parvenu settlers into suddenly realizing that they were no longer safe.

“The cave built by Wicker on his farm 53 years ago has one entrance branching into two chambers: the one to the left measures about 100 metres and the other one goes in nearly 80 metres. The entrance is almost half a metre high while the interior measures approximately two metres vertically”. Interestingly, Wicker’s Cave, contrived hidden near a hill in the 540-acres Kapwicker Farm, recently renamed as the Sarout Farm, remained unknown until only a few year ago. Van Wicker’s Cave is set in Kipkelion West near Fort Ternan, 50 km from Londiani.


Around Kenya are a selection of natural landmarks, cultural shrines, architectural oddities, and technological installations that offer incredible, almost surreal experiences that can make you feel as if you’ve stepped into another world. Hauntingly beautiful to some, eerie sights for others, and still, for others, down right strange, these site provide unique experiences for adventurous travelers.


Located in southwestern part of Kenya within the former Rift Valley Province, Kericho County, a healthful highland, has innumerable picture-postcard tea-farm vistas. Kericho County is famous for its vast tea plantations. It is all around a tea-riffic countryside clutching traditions and culture with one hand and a forward-looking yen on the other. It is home to large forests, historic sites and resorts, too.

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What’s The Air Like In Kericho?

The annual mean temperature ranges between 29oC and 10oC. The central part of the county, where tea is grown, receives the highest rainfall.

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