kenya: fly camping in the northern forests

A fly camp is a small, light camp put up for your stay and taken down when you leave, used to sleep in places no lodge reaches.

On this route it is the simplest of the three stops: no permanent rooms, canvas close to the ground and days spent on foot. In general it means a small tent or a mosquito-net shelter over a proper camp bed, a bucket shower and a bush loo.

As a guide to the style in these mountains, the fly camp that Kitich, your next stop, runs in the Mathews Range has tents with mosquito-net ceilings for watching the stars from a camp bed, hot bucket showers, short-drop loos and a dining table under a shade tree. Donkeys or camels and their Samburu handlers carry the kit, for one group at a time.

We confirm the exact arrangements for your dates when you book.

Fit enough to enjoy several hours on your feet in hill country, but this is walking, not mountaineering.

Kitich is the demanding part. The camp sits at about 1,330 metres in steep forest, no vehicle goes beyond it, and the trails give a fair idea of the ground:

• One circuit of about 13 kilometres with some 550 metres of climbing
• Another circuit of about 10 kilometres with 500 metres of climbing
• A longer route of about 18 kilometres that climbs nearly 1,000 metres

Nobody has to do those. You walk with Samburu and Ndorobo guides, and a morning along the Ngeng River to the rock pools counts as much as a day on the ridges. Altitude and forest shade keep it comfortable enough to be out all day.

At Sarara Treehouses walking is one choice among several, since there are game drives too. Bring worn-in boots, and tell us honestly how far you like to walk.

Less big game than on the plains, and that is the honest trade for walking here.

In closed forest you read animals from tracks, dung and sound far more often than you watch them, which is why the days at Kitich are about following elephant sign. Elephants are the likeliest large animal to be seen, since they are frequent visitors to the valley.

The forest's own specialities are the surer reward: colobus monkeys, more than 350 kinds of bird and over 150 butterflies, and Kitich also has the De Brazza's monkey among its residents.

Leopard, lion and wild dog do pass through, but treat any of them as luck. The whole wild dog population of Samburu and Laikipia is only 80 to 90 animals in nine packs.

The open country comes last. Sarara Treehouses stands over a permanent waterhole that brings regular elephant sightings, and there the game drives and night drives take over.

January and February, and June to October, are the months we rate highest for northern Kenya, when the tracks are firm, the skies are clear and the forest paths are at their easiest underfoot. For a trip spent largely on foot and partly under light canvas, that counts for more than usual.

April and May, the long rains, are the wrong months for it: forest paths turn slippery, and one warning we give is that routes into Samburu country become unpredictable.

March, November and December sit in between. Sarara Treehouses shuts from 1 November to 1 December, so a trip in that window needs a different last stop.

The weeks after the rains have real upsides all the same. The Mathews Range is at its greenest, migrant birds are present from November to April in a forest with over 350 species, there are fewer visitors and lower prices, and the light is often what photographers hope for.

Most of it can.

The nights are the easiest thing to move: Kitich also runs longer walks with overnight fly camps, the kit carried by donkeys and camels, so keen walkers can add nights there, and anyone less sure about canvas can shorten the fly camp at the start.

At the far end, the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary is about 45 minutes from Sarara Treehouses, which arranges visits, so ask us about adding one.

Two things are fixed. Sarara Treehouses closes from 1 November to 1 December. And these are small camps, Sarara Treehouses with only eight suites, so their space sets the dates and we secure them first. The lodge is also better suited to children of six and over.

For the way in and out, Sarara is served by private charter into the Namunyak airstrip, typically a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, or by scheduled flight to Kalama, about an hour and a half away by road.