Kembu Cottages, Campsite & Farm Stay

Kenana Farm, Njoro Near Nakuru, Kenya

(Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel in Kenana Farm is found just outside Nakuru about 180 Kilometers from Nairobi and is a convenient stopover point for those planning trips to Lake Bogoria or Lake Baringo en-route to the Masai Mara. Kembu cottages and campsite are located on a large 900 acre/ 400ha farm just 8 Kilometers beyond Njoro and 30 Minutes from Nakuru Town. The hotel is only 2.5 hours drive from Nairobi)

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel View Rates, Discounted Prices - Book & Save Now!

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel is owned by the Nightingales family and is located in Kembu Farm overlooking the Great Rift Valley - an ideal weekend get-away for anyone looking for fresh air, beautiful countryside and very comfortable, modern accommodation. The peaceful setting of Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel is found just outside Nakuru.

This lovely hotel is very easy to feel at home with guests being able to self cater or dine at the wooden bar who offer a range of snacks and cooked meals. There is a well equipped campsite for individuals or larger parties of guests. Kembu Farm is located 40 kilometers West of Lake Nakuru in the Rift Valley of southwest Kenya.

The cottages and campsite are located on a large 900 acre farm where one can enjoy the freedom to go on long walks, relax or pursue any one of the many activities offered by Kembu. This wonderful high altitude climate means there is no malaria. Crisp clean air and ample space makes for an ideal family sojourn where children can help feed horses, calves and chickens and burn up their excess energy.

Children absolutely love Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel! For parents Kembu Farm is a super place to just let the children run around. There's so much space, and Zoe and Andrew Nightingale, who own and manage the farm are more than happy to let your children feed the cows, play in the hay bales and make friends with their numerous dogs who love to be petted at every opportunity.

For couples and people wanting a quiet place to stay, Kembu offers privacy and comfort as a quiet retreat from bustling city life.

Kembu Farm Accommodation
Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel currently has 7 beautifully furnished cottages each having a private garden, comfortable, modern interiors and a well-equipped kitchen. A tree-house is nearby which is nicely done, and is a slightly cheaper option, as it shares showers and toilet facilities with the campsite.

The Cottages are spacious with most being painted various tones of sunshine yellow. The cottages range from the cozy one bed roomed Tree house to the spacious Kenana Cottage which could sleep quite a number of people.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Accommodation Rates/Prices

Notes

* Unless a special arrangement is made with the management, Acacia, Yellow Room, Kenana, Albizia & Mutati guests will be catered for on a ‘Hosted’ or ‘Private Cottage’ level; Tree House, Cobb’s Carriage & Campsite Guests will be catered for at a Campsite casual level

* To make a confirmed booking in Cottages or Tents with bedding NOTE: You have no booking until a Full Payment has been Received. When you make your enquiry we can hold a provisional booking for 24 hours without payment after 24 hours the booking is cancelled and you must re-contact us

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Catering Options Rates/Prices

Kembu Cottages Hosted Meals

Notes

* Set Menu hosted by owners served in the main Farm House or your cottage Mid morning + afternoon Coffee/Tea
* All Meals inclusive of soft drinks and During Dinner a limited amount of wine or beer will be offered
* Other drinks chargeable
* Laundry included

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Catering Options Rates/Prices

Kembu Cottages Private Meals

Notes

* Set Menus Served in the cottage and all drinks chargeable

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Catering Options Rates/Prices

Kembu Cottages Campsite Meals

Notes

* No soft or Alcoholic drinks included

* Set Menu served informal Bar setting

* Self Catering: Bring your own food. A part time house helper is included within the price of Mutati, Albizia and Kenana Cottage

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Activities

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Farm Walk

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Farm Walk visits the dairy, race horses, and general surrounding area of the farm. This takes about an hour, and is complimentary for Kembu guests.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Extended farm walk

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Extended farm walk includes the above but the clients can visit a women’s co-operative knitting project on the farm and the local primary school.

We ask for voluntary donations for the school and guests usually buy some of the products from the Kenana Knitters project. Long walks with panoramic views of the rift valley. Guided or unguided. Pay for guide at 100/- per hour.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Football & Volleyball

Most evenings on the farm, some of the staff get together for an evening kick around of football or volleyball.

This is open to anyone, and if there are enough people turn up then an informal match is held. If you are here for a while as a larger group you could put together a team and challenge the farm team!

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Bird watching& Nature watching

Scan over the species lists and you will be amazed to see that despite being an agricultural area there is still an incredible amount of wildlife in the area living at one with the farm.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Visit to a Rose Farm

5 minutes drive away, clients can visit a farm growing Roses for export to the Dutch flower auctions. A contribution is asked for towards staff welfare at the rose farm. Permission must be sought in advance from the rose farm manager through Kembu management.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Sundowners on Ngongongeri

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel has a cleared a nice spot under one of the big acacia trees to watch the evening light play across the Great Rift Valley.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Community Tourism
Kembu Cottages is very involved with the community - creating employment, education & improving the environment. Current projects include:

Indigenous Tree Planting
All round the farm we have started a demonstration program of planting indigenous, and useful exotic trees. Kembu Cottages are currently trying to get a forestry nursery set up to encourage tree planting within the community. Please donate all your empty plastic water bottles for making drip irrigation units for the community.

Kembu Cottages is currently working with the action group FOMAWA (Friends of the Mau Watershed) who are particularly interested in restoring trees and shrubbery to our rivers and water catchment zones. Any donations will be given to the creation of a tree nursery to provide subsidized trees for the community.

Kenana Knitters
A community project whose successful marketing with help from passing travelers like yourselves has found markets overseas and locally for their wool spinning and knitting. Currently looking for markets for their home made paper making from natural waste products.

Kenana Primary School
Many people coming to Kenya want to help the children, they bring pens, exercise books and crayons, great gifts well meant, but quickly used up and of little consequence. Kembu Cottages believe money should be spent on things that will not only help today’s children but help future generations as well.

In the five years since Kembu was started we have managed to raise over 25,000 US Dollars towards the renovation and equipping of the local community/government owned school. With this we have built the ´Friendship Building´ and have repaired and maintained many other buildings.

Kembu Cottages has built a library in the roof of the friendship building and also instigated a program of buying text books for the school. These can be seen on request as part of our complimentary farm walk program. Please contact us if you want to contribute to our efforts in any way.

Njoro Golf Club
A short drive away is the hundred year old Njoro Country Club where they have an eighteen hole golf course, a 5 lane bowling green, and a great nineteenth. Day membership and green fees are very reasonable, clubs can be hired and balls bought at reasonable rates. Well worth some time out here.

Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Excursions/Tours

Mitumba Market Madness (Minimum 2 Hour Excursion)

Kenyans love their mitumba markets, where second hand clothes are sold for a song. Effectively, any clothes donated to charity destined for kenya are bundled up into huge compressed bales then distributed around the country.

The bundles are then sold for the cost of distribution, opened up by the mitumba stall holders and divided and sold on.

In Njoro, new bundles are opened Wednesdays and Saturdays and everyone with a spare penny goes to town to see what bargains they can find.

Many people prefer to shop from the specialized stall holders who choose to do shirts, or jeans, or a particular fashion look. Here you will pay 2-3 times the bale opening price, but someone has selected what they think is the best.

It is not unusual to find real designer labels and high quality clothing, because in the first world it is only the really well off that can afford to give so much away.

Popular among groups coming to stay is to have a ‘bad taste party’, all members of the group put their names into a hat, then armed with 500/- go to Mitumba and buy an evening outfit for whoever’s name you drew out of the hat. Hilarious..This is the perfect chance to join the local community on a fun day out, do what they do, and have a laugh...

Egerton Castle (2 Hour Excursion)

An exact replica of Lord Egerton’s English home, Tatton Hall (the most visited of all the National Trust properties). Lord Egerton, fourth baron of Tatton, first came to Kenya in the 1920s.

A keen hunter and photographer, he was enchanted by the country and bought 1,900 acres of farmland near his close friend Lord Delamere.

While on long leave in England, he fell in love with an eligible young lady who would not consider marrying him, as she had been brought up to live in a castle, not a mud hut. Lord Egerton returned to Kenya and built a 52 room castle near Njoro, modeled on the family mansion in Knustford, complete with oak paneling– the oak imported from England – and a magnificent ballroom.

It took him several years to create such a perfect home for his bride to be, that by the time it was finished, his lady friend had fallen in love with someone else.

Lord Egerton then threw his energies into farming. He set up Egerton Agricultural College on 1,200 acres of land near Delamere’s plant breeding station, now part of Egerton University. His entire family fortune was sunk into developing Kenya’s agriculture. He died in 1958 leaving no heir. The castle is a shadow of its former glory, but is open to the public.

Out of camp site turn left, tarmac road turn right, 800m later turn left on 1st tarmac road, 7km later turn RIGHT up avenue of trees, turn RIGHT at top of hill and you will be able to see and make your way to the castle.

Egerton University, in association with the National Museums of Kenya, are renovating the castle as a Museum of Agricultural Development in Kenya.

Menengai Crater (Half day excursion - 25 Minutes Drive Away)
Largest Volcano Caldera in Kenya

Menengai Crater is the second largest volcano caldera in Africa, and influences much of the geology in this area of the Rift Valley. The main viewpoint gives you a 270° view of the caldera and rift valley.

Menengai has very little sediment in the caldera which is a thick mass of lava boulders and inaccessible ridges. Clients can drive to the top and look down into the crater from the viewpoint. Locals can do a nature walk from there around the crater rim.

The crater viewpoint features importantly in Masai history as the place where warriors of the Iloskelai and Lakipak clans (now extinct) were finally defeated and driven off the cliff to their deaths around 1854.

To get there drive into Nakuru and take the bypass that puts you onto the A104 towards Nairobi. Just outside the town centre the road dips under a railway bridge, after this take the first LEFT up the hill. 500 meters later take the second RIGHT onto “Menengai Road” then fourth LEFT onto “Crater Climb.” Follow the road up the hill and at the top of the mountain bear right and eventually you will come to the viewpoint.

There are steep drop offs all round so DO REMEMBER TO PUT ON YOUR HAND BRAKE!! A walk to the south, going clockwise round the crater takes you into the forestry reserve, and eventually to the Church Cave before you get onto private land and have to turn around.

Do take a guide and have somebody to look after your car if you intend to leave it. Nakuru County Council are trying to establish a community guide programme for guided walks around and down into the crater.

Lake Nakuru National Park

Only a half hour drive from Kembu Cottages and Campsite, Lake Nakuru National park is a great place to look for leopard and lion. Lake Nakuru is considered one of the best 'one day' National Parks to visit.

Famous for its efforts in rhino conservation and breeding, Nakuru also boasts an incredible population of flamingoes.

Lake Bogoria National Reserve

For those of you who want to get away from the madding crowds, a day trip to Lake Bogoria National Reserve is a great adventure. Located in the bottom of the Rift Valley, this beautiful area is another haunt for flamingoes and greater kudu.

On the edge of this soda lake are quite a number of geothermal geysers and ho springs. Put a fresh egg into an old sock and hang this on a stick in the steaming water for eleven minutes for a hard boiled picnic.

Kiplombe

An easy day's hike only 45 minutes drive away from Kembu. Take a guide to point out the Mau Mau caves.

Mau Forest

Booking & Reservations for Kembu Cottages & Campsite Hotel Near Nakuru, Kenya contact:

Booking Office Tel: + 254 (0) 20 2437871

Mobile : 0721242711 (Safaricom) - Kenya

Email: info@africanspicesafaris.com