This was the first major holiday we had embarked on and is still probably our most remembered and special holiday, mainly due to the place itself. We chose to travel with Kuoni who are experts at arranging unusual and personal holidays. We had been on a holiday the previous year with friends Bob and Sue who we met on a Nile river cruise and this was a celebration of our retirement. It has been said that everyone should go on a safari at least once before they die and we both agree with this sentiment; in fact this is one of the holidays that we would do again given the chance, especially with our best friends Nick and Olwen. It is a sad reflection on world and African affairs that Kenya is now not such a safe place to go and maybe a safari in Kenya is not so simple now. We still talk about this holiday and we still remember the Governors camp in the Maasai (or Masai) Mara region of Kenya, south west of Nairobi, with great affection.

Kuonia (our tour organisers) arranged a tour of Nairobi which included a local zoo (interesting) and a train museum (very interesting); the tour of the zoo, seemed a bit incongruous bearing in mind that we were going to see the real thing in its natural surroundings later in the week.  However, the railway museum and the journey to it allowed us to appreciate the colonial influence of Britain (specifically the East Africa Railway Company) on the development of the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Nairobi Railways Museum, opened in 1971 and is the only railway museum in East and Central Africa; it is tucked behind tall Jacaranda trees and you do have a feeling that you have travelled to a different era whilst there.  It is quiet and not highly commercialized; the trains in the museum yard have been well preserved, their initials still clearly visible.  Tanganyika Railways – T. R. 327 – was used to shoot the movie 'Out of Africa' and sits amongst them.  The history of the Kenya-Uganda railway line, in essence shaped what is present day Kenya.  Even Nairobi itself still illustrates the influence that Briatain had on its design and build with typical English town roads and Victorian buildings.  Say what you will about the British in Africa and other places, the Victorians certainly brought a sense of order and quality to the civic structure of the country.

On our journey back to the hotel we passed a large park where a political rally was being held and in parts of the outskirts of Nairobi you could see the potential for unrest and violence which followed in the next couple of years.  A lot of people out of work, squalor and dirt everywhere.