<b>Saturday 3rd September 2016:</b> we leave the Emporer's Palace in Johannesburg and fly South African Airlines to Nairobi, flight time 4 hours, but by the time we do airports at both ends and road travel each end, there is nothing left of today. We are met by the 3 land cruisers that are going to be our transport for all of Kenya - Alex is our driver, a big jovial fellow, but he may be hard to understand. These land cruisers are covered in and the roof opens in sections for you to stand up and look out of when out on safari. Nairobi has a population of 4.5m and because today is Saturday there isn't meant to be much traffic, but the roundabouts are quite something, put your flicker on and just go - lucky we are a small bus and bigger than them. The Nairobi Serena Hotel has a huge heated pool and as usual is lovely. Our watches are put forward an hour, so we are now 5 hrs behind Perth and 17 for New York. 

 
<b>Sunday 4th September 2016:</b> Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads - John says thank you for his well travelled card and Lotto tickets. We leave the hotel at 7.30 with our pack down bags that Scenic provided and our big bags are stored - won't see them until the end of the tour. The outskirts of Nairobi seem to go for miles with some nice industrial buildings, lots of cement construction taking place and the rest is very ordinary. As we leave suburbia there are chicken and egg farms, cows and goats being herded along the road - the small towns or villages are so backward, bit of a culture shock for us. We turn off the main road onto the most corrugated and rough road for an hour and a half, entering into the Amboseli National Park, flat dry safari country with giraffe, zebra etc etc along the way and then we come upon green and water which comes up from the ground as a result of snow runoff from the mountain range that Kilomanjiro is in - can't see it today because of the haze. The wildlife around this water is amazing and the Ol Tukai Lodge borders on this. The lodge is 8 years old and screams Africa at its best. We are all in huts overlooking the game park - heaps of zebra out there at the moment. We arrive at 12.30 in time for lunch, I have a massage at 2 (one of the options) and at 4pm we go for a game drive. It is very dusty, with willy willies all around, apparently this reflects the name. We see lots of animals but the lions are a long way away and because this is a National Park we can't go off the tracks unlike the Kruger section where we were. Mount Kilomanjiro's peak becomes visible above the clouds - it is 5888m high and has snow on the top all year round, which feeds the wet areas below.