Day 31 Cycle to El Kanto

16th May today, we started this stage on the 4th, which seems like a long time ago.

After lots of discussion, we decided that it really was an elephant that came to investigate at 1am, although Tom was too terrified to unzip the tent for a look - breathing noises sound much closer in the dark than they might actually be.

The lunar eclipse mainly happed behind trees and then we left camp as soon as we could. First stop was a school which had a rain water tank - with a long day ahead we needed to keep topped up wherever the opportunity arose. We have drunk a lot of water from these tanks in the last two weeks and they made finding water so much easier than if we had come in the dry season.

The main challenge of the day was to cross an unmapped 5km stretch that linked our road on the West side of the "valley" to the one on the East side. This looked clear on the map but there was nothing there! After some discussion we headed off to "bush whack" our way through. 

15 minutes of this and it was clear it would be a long section ... Then we heard a piki piki and a further 5 minutes saw us on a little track. Phew! It did not go in quite the right direction but that was of little consequence - it linked us to the road.

We passed a market on the way, no apparent settlement nearby and it clearly was not market day. There was a very interesting way of building where the roots of the aloes are planted to make walls.

Here's another interesting building method using flat rocks and wire, although this one was clearly abandoned. Perhaps it just didn't catch on...

We stopped at 1pm for 90 minutes in the heat of the day and then pushed on the final 25km. The landscape became increasingly hilly and gravely as we approached the Ndoto Mountains.

The penultimate stretch was cycling through sand in a lugga for a few km, very hard indeed.

Then all we had to do was to cycle / push up the final hill to get to El Kanto, Helen Douglas du Fresne's amazing abode the overlooks the confluence of the Seiya and Milgis Luggas. The 360 degree views are one of a kind. We slept under the stars.

Huge thanks to Eric Nesbitt for his top notch routing all the way from Chuylu. There was not a day without stunning riding. And thank you to Emma for pretty crucial logistical support on this leg.

For now, it's back to Nairobi, ready to start walking north from here in mid September. Thank you for reading this far ...

Technical Corner - The Stove

Tom has always taken a Trangia which works on methylated spirits - fine for backpacking but too large for bikepacking. Daniel spent 3 weeks before we left learning how to use the alternative,  Primus that runs on pressurised petrol. 

Tom was always taught never to put a match to petrol, so it took a bit of getting used to, plus the fact that it is a fossil fuel! But we got pretty nifty at lighting it and boiling our water. Even Tom had to admit that it was very efficinet and used hardly any fuel. We had ready meals, so did not do any actual cooking. Deemed a successful bit of kit after initial scepticism!