Parks & reserves: Aberdare National Park
Nearby sites
Thomson's Falls
The B5 road from Nakuru to Nyeri borders the Aberdare range and its national park by the north. On the northernmost point of this route lies the town of Nyahururu, the highest in Kenya, located at an elevation of 7,742 ft (2,360 m).
A left turn from the main road passes some curio shops and leads into Thomson's Falls Lodge, where there is a car park and a picnic and camping site. This is a convenient lunch stop when travelling from Nakuru to Aberdare and also an attraction in itself, since it is the place where the Ewaso Narok river, a tributary of Samburu's Ewaso Nyiro, plunges 243 ft (74 m) down a bed of volcanic rocks. This is one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Kenya, and sadly one of the only pay-per-view falls in the world, since some years ago the Nyahururu township decided to erect a gate and charge a fee just to catch a glimpse of the falling waters.
Besides the view from the platform at the lodge, there is a path that descends down the ravine to the foot of the falls. They can also be seen from the upper end after a short walk from the bridge on the main road just past the turning to the lodge, though the view here is not quite as impressive. Finally, little more than one mile (2 km) upstream, the river harbors a hippo pool which is possibly Kenya's highest.
The first European to set foot at this place was Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson, who in 1883 led a pioneering expedition venturing into the Maasai land with the purpose of finding the shortest way from the coast to Uganda. Thomson's journey would open the route to build the Mombasa-Nairobi-Kampala railway, famously known as the Lunatic Express, which over time would serve as a backbone for the birth of Kenya as a country.
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