Nderit House

The neatest route is by air to Kilifi's own airstrip, about ten kilometres from the house, which we reach by private charter, typically a Cessna Caravan or Pilatus PC-12, with a road transfer of twenty to thirty minutes at the end of it. Scheduled light aircraft from Nairobi's Wilson airport also serve the Vipingo Ridge airstrip down the coast on certain days of the week, with the drive north built into the plan.

Otherwise, fly from Nairobi to the coast and finish by road: Mombasa's airport is about an hour in the air and roughly an hour and a half's drive south of Kilifi, while Malindi's airport, served daily in a little over an hour, leaves a drive of about an hour from the north. We arrange the transfer whichever way the flights fall.

It is, along the whole of this coast. The UK's official travel health advice classes Kenya as high risk for malaria outside Nairobi city and the highlands above 2,500 metres, and the CDC recommends antimalarial tablets for all areas below that altitude, which puts a sea-level house on Kilifi Plantation firmly inside the zone. Tablets are normally recommended for everyone in the party.

A travel clinic or your doctor will confirm the right course a few weeks before departure. Day to day, it comes down to repellent and long sleeves once the light goes.

Expect proper coastal heat, days in the high twenties to low thirties, with the monsoon winds shaping the seasons: the kaskazi brings the hottest, driest months from December to March, the kusi blows cooler from May to October, and the long rains fall from late April into June with a short rainy spell in November. What rain comes tends to fall hard and clear fast.

Light natural fabrics, swimwear, a hat and strong sun protection cover the days, with a long-sleeved layer for evenings that doubles as mosquito cover. Reef shoes are worth packing for walking into the water over the coral at lower tides.

For the sea at its calmest and clearest, come between October and March, when the kaskazi settles the water and the snorkelling straight off the garden is at its best, with December to March the hottest, driest stretch. Kite surfers get two windows, steady wind from January to March and a stronger kusi blow from July to September.

The humpback whale migration passes this coast from July to October, strongest in August and September, and whale-watching boats work out of Watamu to the north. The long rains from late April into June are the quietest weeks, with rain in short bursts rather than lost days.

Three or four nights makes the natural beach stage at the end of a safari, enough for the reef, the creek and the pool to each get their turn without the days feeling programmed. A full week suits families and groups settling in properly, alternating lazy days at the house with the creek's watersports, the marine conservancy up the coast and the plantation's tracks by bicycle or on foot.

We would rather you took fewer, unhurried nights than squeezed the coast into a single overnight. With the road transfers from the airports, one night gives you an evening and little more.

Well. It is a family home by design rather than a couples' retreat, with a twin room among the five, a pool in the garden and the reef close enough that confident swimmers snorkel straight off the beach. The tides set the swimming rhythm, so younger children get the shallows and rock pools at low water and the proper swims when the tide is in, with the pool covering everything between.

The house is staffed rather than serviced, so meals bend to children's hours easily. Tell us the ages when we plan and we will confirm cots and room arrangements directly with the house.