Whenever Graham had work to do at the Kiboko research station we stayed at Hunter’s Lodge. It was just next door, and the hotel manager allowed Graham a key to the back garden gate so he could come and go on foot rather than driving the long way round. The Lodge had been built around the late 1950s for the big game hunter, John Hunter. It was sited near his favourite waterhole, beside the Nairobi – Mombasa highway, just north of Makindu, and this was the place he chose for his retirement after a long career as safari guide and game controller.
At some time in the sixties the site was expanded into a motel with a small block of architect designed guest rooms overlooking the pool. (In his day, Hunter had dammed the Kiboko River that fed the waterhole and so created a garden lake). For a time the place had a heyday, being the weekend spot for British expatriates, or the main overnight stopover for anyone driving to or from Mombasa. Then the highway was improved with a layer of tarmac, and the clientele drove on by.
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When we stayed there in the ‘90s it was unusual to find any other guests. The Lodge staff anyway had their own regime that ticked over nicely irrespective of visitors. Now and then some Kenyan government agency might hold a seminar there or an overland truck might be allowed to park up and its occupants to camp on the lawn. Once I met an Israeli water engineer who was consulting on a nearby project. Otherwise, my main companions by day were Joyce the chambermaid and an astonishment of birdlife.
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And vervet monkeys.
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The vervets kept a keen eye on us. They soon learned we had supplies in our room – especially highly desirable bananas, and packs of raisins and nuts. We brought these to make up for the limited Lodge menu of cheese sandwiches, omelettes and steak and chips. But any unguarded moment and there would be a raid. I once came out of the bathroom to find three monkey faces peering up at me from under the bed.
The vervet in the header had clearly pounced while I was distracted with some bird watching out on the lawn (viz. empty binoculars case). And with over 200 local species, the distractions were many – from tiny malachite kingfishers to the giants whose diving technique seemed set to empty the pool. There were also pied and brown hooded kingfishers, ibis, storks, herons and weaver birds, and once, a lone pelican that dropped in from who knows where.
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Days at Hunter’s Lodge were like a waking dream, soundtrack the high-tension whine of insects, muffled rumble of trucks along the highway, clatter of stork bills up in the fever trees and sometimes the chime of a bell calling the gardeners and chamber-maids to their tea breaks.
