RTG Southern Cross Daily Dispatch low-res - Flipbook - Page 14
Day 6: Karen to Mount Kenya Safari Club, 21 February 2020
Photos: gerardbrown.co.uk
Keith Graham and Susan Hoffmann’s smoking Mercedes-Benz
Stephen and Jenny Verrall’s Porsche 911’s windscreen fitters...
day. A light lunch was provided here - for those who had
time to eat it next to an inviting looking swimming pool.
Steve and Jenny Verrall discovered that their windscreen
was making a bid for freedom so, along with Keith
Ashworth, David Roberts and Andy Inskip, they removed it
totally, before cleaning, lubing, refitting the seal and then
slotting in the glass. In theory, easy enough but, as they
quickly found out, the reality of working in an airless 30°
car park caused them all to work up a bit of a sweat.
The next Time Control was set in the highly colonial
Outspan Hotel, in the town of Nyeri, dating back to the
1920’s. In its extensive grounds is a cottage that Lord
Baden-Powell and his wife Olave once called home. More
importantly for the rally the hotel now houses a thoroughly
modern coffee machine, and staff who were fully trained
in its operation.
Soon after this short break, and just beyond a set of
mobile roadworks, was the day’s second Regularity along
the aptly named Crooked Road which rose to a cooler
1800m. When the clock had stopped on this section we
were on the home run alongside a boiling mass of cloud
that was, according to our map books, Mount Kenya.
Keith Graham and Susan Hoffmann were slightly delayed
here thanks to a small engine fire, a short circuit from the
battery in their Mercedes had melted the plastic covering
and caused smoke to appear. Luckily it didn’t spread, even
more luckily the fire brigade arrived in the form of Andy
Inskip and Malcolm and Lloyd Destro who got the car
running again without the pyrotechnics.
On the road into Nanyuki, and close to the airport,
another sort of cloud filled our windscreens. A swarm of
desert locusts was wheeling overhead and bringing the
traffic to a standstill. Luckily for the local farmers the
plague didn’t descend onto their fields and after a short
while moved on to the west as we pressed on northwards
and into the grounds of the magnificent Mount Kenya
Safari Club for a two night stay.
This famous old hotel is built exactly on the equator
and there’s a red line running through the bar at exactly 0°
latitude. Two hemispheres in one room. For Rally the Globe
it doesn’t get much better than that!
Tomorrow we’ve got a short day, but a special one, and
the Governor is going to send us on our way.
Gerardus Mercator, Dispatch reporter
On Safari, Bernd and Christiane Dannenmaier with their 1972 Toyota
Land Cruiser
www.rallytheglobe.com
