6 Days Ol Pejeta to Samburu Road Safari: Samburu Special 5 Circuit Through Northern Kenya

Pickup is from your Nairobi hotel or JKIA, timed for a 6:30am departure so that you reach Ol Pejeta in good light. The drive north runs on tarmac through Kenya’s central highlands, climbing past tea and coffee estates and small market towns before the equator crossing near Nanyuki, then on to Rongai Gate at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, about 207 kilometres and three and a half hours from Nairobi.

Ol Pejeta sits on 90,000 acres of Laikipia County between the foothills of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya, and it holds the largest black rhino population in East Africa. It is also the only place on the continent where the last two northern white rhinos in the world, Najin and Fatu, still live under twenty four hour guard.

After a light lunch at Maisha Sweetwaters Camp, the afternoon is built around a rhino focused game drive rather than a general Big Five checklist. Our guides know which sections of the conservancy the black rhino favour at this time of day, and Ol Pejeta’s own rangers often radio through sightings as they happen.

This opening day suits any traveller starting a Kenya safari from Nairobi who wants rhino sightings within hours of leaving the city rather than after a long flight north. Overnight at Maisha Sweetwaters Camp, a tented camp near Rongai Gate with sixty self-contained tents overlooking a resident waterhole and views toward Mount Kenya.

Day two is a full day inside the conservancy, with a morning game drive before the heat sets in and a second drive in the late afternoon. Ol Pejeta’s open plains and river fed woodland hold all of the Big Five, alongside cheetah, Grevy’s zebra and more than one hundred black rhino.

A visit to the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary is worked into the morning. It is Kenya’s only chimpanzee sanctuary, home to chimps rescued from conflict zones and the illegal pet trade across Central Africa, and it sits inside Ol Pejeta’s boundary.

“This is the itinerary we send when a guest tells us they have already done the Mara three times and want to see something Kenya’s classic circuit skips entirely.”

Overnight again at Maisha Sweetwaters Camp. Guests who want a slower second day can swap the second drive for a rhino tracking walk with an armed ranger, arranged directly through the conservancy.

After breakfast we leave Ol Pejeta and drive north through Isiolo toward Samburu County, a journey of roughly four hours covering just over 200 kilometres. The landscape changes fast on this stretch, from Laikipia’s green ranchland to the dry acacia scrub and doum palms of the Ewaso Nyiro River basin.

Lunch is taken on arrival, and the afternoon is given over to a game drive in search of the Samburu Special Five, five species found in this arid ecosystem and rarely seen further south: Grevy’s zebra, reticulated giraffe, Beisa oryx, gerenuk and Somali ostrich.

Wildlife photographers and repeat Kenya visitors often rate this single afternoon drive among the highlights of the whole circuit, simply because these five species do not appear on a standard Masai Mara or Amboseli itinerary. Overnight at Surana Buffalo Springs, a camp of seventeen tented suites set on a ridge above the Ewaso Nyiro River, each with its own private plunge pool and a view toward Mount Ololokwe.

Breakfast is early, because the morning is dedicated to Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, Africa’s first community owned elephant sanctuary, set inside the Namunyak Community Conservancy roughly ninety minutes to two hours’ drive from Samburu, depending on the exact camp.

Reteti’s Milk Mamas programme buys surplus goat milk directly from more than a thousand Samburu women across Namunyak, pasteurises it on site and bottle feeds it to orphaned and abandoned elephant calves around the clock. Guests watch a feeding session from the viewing platform and hear from the keepers, most of whom are drawn from the local Samburu community.

We return to camp for lunch, then head back out for an afternoon game drive across the Ewaso Ng’iro bridge into Buffalo Springs National Reserve, known for its natural springs, open savannah and good sightings of leopard and cheetah in the late afternoon light. Overnight again at Surana Buffalo Springs.

One last morning game drive in Samburu before checkout, then a long drive south to the Aberdares, roughly five hours covering close to 300 kilometres through Isiolo, Nanyuki and Nyeri.

Guests check in for lunch at the Aberdare Country Club, which serves as the staging post for The Ark. Private vehicles are not permitted beyond this point. A dedicated shuttle carries guests the final stretch into Aberdare National Park and onto The Ark itself, a lodge built in the shape of Noah’s Ark overlooking the floodlit Yasabara waterhole and salt lick.

The afternoon and evening are unstructured by design. Guests settle onto one of the lodge’s viewing decks with a drink and watch elephant, buffalo and occasionally black rhino or leopard come to the waterhole as the light drops. A buzzer in every room alerts guests if anything notable arrives at the waterhole after dark, so nobody has to stay awake to catch it.

After an early breakfast at The Ark, the shuttle returns guests to the Aberdare Country Club, where the private vehicle and driver guide are waiting for the drive back to Nairobi, roughly three and a half hours south.

We time the return so the group arrives at Carnivore Restaurant on Langata Road in time for a farewell lunch. Open since 1980, Carnivore is Nairobi’s best known nyama choma restaurant, where waiters carve grilled meat tableside from Maasai sword skewers as part of its all you can eat Beast of a Feast.

After lunch, it is a short transfer to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for departure. Six days after that first rhino sighting at Rongai Gate, most guests leave having seen wildlife Kenya’s Masai Mara circuit simply does not offer.