Traveller's Tales - a family safari and cycling adventure in Kenya and Mauritius

Kathy shares her experiences of a family safari holiday in Kenya, followed by the beach in Mauritius.

We had a great holiday starting at El Karama in Laikipia, Kenya. It was such a lovely, rustic and friendly place to stay with fantastic hosts and gorgeous food. We all loved it.

Here are some of our favourite moments:

Waking up with a morning call and a fresh lemon and ginger tea was lovely, and we especially loved watching the hippos climbing up the river bank on our first morning.

Hearing the lions roar at night was scary but I did get used to it!

Fly camping in Laikipia was amazing. They literally took their head chef and about another 5 staff to set up and we had our own little camp in the middle of nowhere! We didn't get much sleep that night as the lions were out and about, but it was fantastic!

We spent some time visiting a school, which was brilliant and our children who are 17 and 15 years old were really taken with it. The whole school is funded as a charity, and these school places are for intelligent girls who could not otherwise afford to have an education. It was really good for our kids to see it. We were each assigned a “girl” who proudly showed us around their school.

Then it was on to Masai Mara for more safari, where the elephants greeted us at the entrance to Il Moran!

Seeing the single file of zebra and wildebeest for miles and miles will definitely not be forgotten. Neither will the breakfast picnics/lunch in the savannah with our lovely driver Enos.

Next up was the cycling around Mauritius, quite an adventure for us as a family. The scenery was very pretty but there were quite a few large lorries on the road due to it being harvesting time (for 6 months from June I think), but the traffic was respectful and gave us space.

Lucy wasn't comfortable with the traffic so we stopped after first leg of 20 miles. There were a few stray dogs which was a bit scary at one point too, but for experienced cyclists this would be a great thing to do. Maybe we’ll try again in a few years!

For more inspiration, take a look at our 26 favourite safari holidays or our top family safari holidays.

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