Ngare Ndare Forest

Thanks to Green Ranger Safaris, my lingering fernweh was cured, as I was able to visit Ngare Ndare Forest in Timau, Meru County. I was pretty excited to finally get to see for myself the famous blue waters from the Google images, and ofcourse a sighting of my all-time-favorite wild animals, elephants, would have been an added bonus.

The day trip as a whole was absolutely fantastic. I knew noone there and honestly that made the trip a whole lot more interesting for me. There’s always that thrill that comes with getting to know people for the very first time.It’s scarey and exciting at the same time :-).

Part of the Nyeri-Nanyuki highway

The beautiful golden wheat of Timau, almost ready for harvest

The forest that sits on 5,500 hectares of land is managed by the community, with some of the trained KWS rangers being locals of that area. It is home to a 450-metres long and 40-ft high Canopy Walk, which was built by the British back in the day.

It is also a natural corridor which links Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to Mount Kenya. If you are lucky enough (though that was not the case for us 😦 ), you can spot some of the big 5 including elephants and buffaloes, drinking water, browsing and grazing down below.

The 40ft high Canopy Walk supports a maximum of 5 people at a go, between two pillars

Some of the trees that form this forest include the Red Cedar trees and the African Olive trees which are considered to be two centuries old, and Yellow wood trees, which are preferred for the construction of boats.

The team doing the 3.5 kms trek to the waterfalls

It is of vital importance to go with an armed guide as you traverse the forest. 

One of our guides for the day, Onyango, leads some of the team members to the waterfalls

Hiking with a stick in hand really makes the hike much more bearable

Something to keep you going as you make the 3.5 kilometres trek would be the thought of seeing the pools of turquoise blue waters that await at the very end. These waters come from Ngare Ndare and Ngare Nything Rivers, which stem from springs within the forest.

However, if you happen to visit the place during the rainy season, you will be thoroughly disappointed as all you will be met by brown waters. (As we did *sigh*)

The waters were brown and not turquoise blue as anticipated thanks to the rain over the past two days

Nevertheless, you can still enjoy the beautiful waterfalls and even swim, if you are brave enough to get into the ice-cold water.

A hand-held shot of the Ngare Ndare waterfalls