Horseback Riding in the Kenyan Wilderness
One of the most unique and interesting adventure activity to engage in Kenya is the horseback riding. Horseback riding can be combined and made part of your holiday activity or done exclusively as a horseback safari for those who are experienced drivers.
The riding route avoids the clamor of tourist vans, roads and lodges. Riders are totally cut off from the modern world and life takes on the quieter, more gracious rhythms of a bygone era. Comfortable camps are set up each night by an extremely capable and amenable staff. Anyone who has ridden in Africa knows that nothing can match a brisk canter alongside a herd of graceful antelope. Or the testing reaction of horse and rider when a lioness roars from the grasslands a hundred paces away
One gets to ride through forests and mountains, across open vast savanna and into waterholes and rivers and up huge escarpments that are populated with wildebeest and zebras. Also get to see the elephant quietly feeding. You get to experience all of this as part of your travel experience on a horseback riding safari.
Rides are done in the shadows of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the Chyulu Hills - smoothly shaped, grass covered rolling country rising to 7,000 ft., in the Great Rift Valley, Lake Naivasha area, Masai Mara Reserve, Loita Hills and Mt. Kenya Area in Laikipia and Amboseli National Park.
Types of Horses are Somali-Arab crossbred horses, well schooled thoroughbred horses and thoroughbred cross polo ponies. There are horses to suit all riders from beginners to experts and Patent Safety horse, which have been trained to be careful with children and non-experienced riders.
Laikipia Ride, Kenya
Laikipia is a unique wildlife area and contains an enormous diversity of wildlife from the Big Five downward. It is famous as the last reserve of the Jackson’s Hartebeest and is home of several rare species such as the Reticulated Giraffe, Beisa Oryx, Grevy’s Zebra, Gerenuk and Somali Ostrich amongst others. In recent years the various landowners have tended away from exclusive cattle ranching to embrace more tolerance of game and even large predators such as lion and hyena are more abundant now than they were 25 years ago.
Mount Kenya Safari Club
The Safari club is blessed with a magnificent view of Mount Kenya and has 115 luxurious guest rooms which are set over 100 acres of neat gardens that offer the guests a high level of comfort, adventure and relaxation. Some of the club great guests have included Winston Churchill and Bing Cosby.
The club has a choice of seven thoroughbreds that guests can use to ride at any moment using English saddles and always in the company of one or more grooms. Also, children under the age of twelve years are not permitted to ride the horses.
The Region of Loisaba
Loisaba bestrides the border of Laikipia and Kenya’s rugged Northern Frontier District. Only a few miles from the equator, this private game ranch is in country of transcendent beauty where the farm management and the local Laikipia Maasai and Samburu community work together to preserve the environment and the wildlife that abounds here.
Horseback-ride through the wild canyons of the two great rivers that span the vast property. Loisaba is immense: bigger than ten of the world’s fully-fledged nations. You could take months exploring this land and never encounter the same view twice. On horseback it is possible to get unusually close to wildlife and our stable of horses have all been reared from birth in the bush so are quite accustomed to its presence. It is however a reasonable degree of riding skill required.
Amboseli National Park
Amboseli National Park is located North West of Mt. Kilimanjaro, on the border with Tanzania. Ride Kenya, offer horse riding safaris to one of the most game-rich parks in East Africa. The six nights, 120 mile ride starts at the Kenya/Tanzania border, goes through Amboseli National Park and end at the Chyulu Hills.
Riding through the Amboseli guarantees the rider to see many types of wild animals including elephants, buffaloes,hippos,lions ,cheetahs and huge herds of zebra and wildebeest. Amboseli is located at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro so the view is breathtaking and awesome.
Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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