Attractions in Nakuru County
36. Kika Lodge, Gilgil
If the tiny road signage to Kika Lodge has once caught your attention and twice you heed to the wanderlust call, you’ll arrive at an unexpectedly charming lodge with scenic respite. Kika Lodge has eleven chic, detached cottages with pleasing views over the hillside and valley. This commanding the chartered for mountain lodge is one of the latest weekend hideys in Gilgil area, yet, most up to date and uniquely located. All cottages are of stone and wood construction with canvas roofing, their rural aspect contrasting beautifully with the internal appearance of comfort with a private veranda, outdoor private shower, a large poster-bed, rustic furnishes and en-suite bathroom with a bath. All the cottages are built on the brow of a wooded hill overlooking the 100-acres property, if only the perfect setting for a very indulgent sunset. The common areas – dining, terrace, lounge and bar – are of a modern design, all having a panoramic view of the country. An evening tet-a-tet bonfire offers an intimate setting to unwind and chat up. Other interests include: lazy frolic walks to the calming River Gilgil, horseback rides and golfing at the nearby Gilgil Golf Club. It is located next to Pembrooke School (near Gilgil Town) and 400 metres before the turnoff to Gilgil Golf Club.
37. Gilgil Golf Club
Driving past Kigio Wildlife Conservancy and Gilgil Weighbridge the turnoff to C77 Gilgil-Nyahururu Road is by the right side. A bituminized road links Gilgil and Thomson’s Falls taking a fascinating route over the Aberdare Range to drop down into Nyahururu, the jumping-off town to Laikipia. This means a scramble up an unrelenting steep from the floor of the Rift Valley to the higher highlands of Nyandarua, an area covering part of Aberdare Forest and farmlands. It is a wildly beautiful drive of stack ecological contrast. Just 5 kms from the junction Gilgil Golf Club is reached. Founded in 1928, the 9-hole golf course which has more browns is, all the same, quite deserving for an engaging round of golf. The course, found next to Pembroke School, offers a nifty mix of play, its back-nine-play running a very different counter to the plain sailing front-nine; some of the pars changing. The original club house was raised down by a fire in the 1940’s that gave way for its current one. Great Rift Golf Course is located 20 kms away.
38. Gilgil War Cemetery
Found in the small but growing town of Gilgil about 120 kms from Nairobi via A104 Nairobi-Nakuru Road, Gilgil War Cemetery contains 224 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. There is also one First World War burial and 31 non war graves. On entering Gilgil Town take the turning right at the Petrol Station and drive for 2 kms. Take the dirt track left at the Railway Crossing and the Cemetery is 400 metres down on the left. The cemetery is signposted from the centre of the town and it’s open Monday-Friday 06:00-18:00. Outside these hours the cemetery’s kept locked with a coded padlock under the care of CWGC.
39. Kariandusi Museum
Nakuru is rich in the remains of prehistoric man and Kariandusi Museum, 7 kms beyond Gilgil and passing Kekopey Centre, is one of the most important in Kenya. It was first excavated in 1928 under the guidance of Dr. Louis B. Leakey yielding numerous links in the chain of human evolution with abundant fossil remains dating back 700,000 to 1 million years. Kariandusi is plausibly the first Acheulian Site to have been found in Situ in East Africa. Thereafter excavation progressed almost continuously for two decades and it is possible to visit these sites and stand where these discoveries, so important to the history of mankind, were made. Key interests for visitors include: the museum exhibition hall, field archaeological site, nature trail to the gorge and Church of Goodwill. Kariandusi also lies just east of Lake Elementaita and is flanked by Menengai Crater on the north and Eburru Mountains found on the south. It is located just 2 kms off the Gilgil-Nakuru Road and can be explored in combination with Lake Elementaita.
40. Church of Goodwill
Raised in 1947 close to Kariandusi Museum the antiquated Church of Goodwill inspired by Lady Eleanor Barfur of the then 38,000-acres Kekopey Ranch is a beguiling and timeless paragon. Lady Eleanor, Daughter of 2nd Earl of Balfour, first arrived in Kenya (British East African Protectorate) in 1916 where she met Galbraith Lowry Egerton Cole, son of 4th Earl of Enniskillen and brother-in-law to 3rd Baron Delamere. They married in 1917. Their residence was the present day Jacaranda Lake Elementaita Lodge. In 1929, just 48 years of age, severely crippled with arthritis, Galbraith felt euthanasia was the only avenue he had left to ease his unbearable pain. His Somali servant wheeled him to the spot where he wished to end his life and assisted with holding his gun, so that he could pull the trigger. A stone obelisk with its plaque quoting from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” still stands overlooking Lake Elementaita at the place where he died. At the close of WWII, Lady Eleanor grounded in Church of Goodwill in Galbraith’s memory as well as in gratitude for the safe return of her two sons from the war. She continued to live at Kekopey Ranch, becoming one of the first Europeans to take up citizenship after independence. Eleanor died in 1979, aged 89. In many ways, the Church of Goodwill is a reflection of Eleanor’s unbending devotion to community, faith and God’s mercies – investing her time and resources to bring it to fruition. Morosely, it memorialized Galbraith’s death. Although its rounded facade conforms more with the native traditional rondavels, in contrast with the English Gothic style of sharp angular walls, it retained many beautiful elements of the classic rural English Churches like the high-pitched wooden-tile roof, the roughcast rubble with ashlar exterior dressings, heavy timber, and a bell-tower.
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