Gentlemen, I bid you a Happy 2010 and hope you guys had a restful and Blessed holiday.
I wanted to update you on the road discussions we had - esp if its useful to other parties who aare not interested in leaving bolts and nuts along the road.
Nairobi - Nakuru
OK - 9/10 (the dual carriageway seems to be deteriorating) - 2 hours - 160km
Nakuru - Mau Summit - Kisumu - 9/10
MUCH better than in August 2009 - abt two, 200 metre diversions just after Nakuru... the Salgaa diversion now completely opened up - we were at Mau Summit in no time and I had to look out for the Total just to be sure otherwise it seemed like we teleported. It would have been abt 190km from Nakuru to Kisumu, but we took the scenic escarpment route - branching off at Kapsoit (after Kericho), onward to Sondu, to rejoin the Kisumu road at Ahero. This segment has NO Trailers or trucks above 10 tonnes.
210km - 3hours (pls note we were enjoying the scenery and the ride - no mad rush since we stayed overnight at the sibilant city)
Kisumu - Busia - 5/10
Leading out of Kisumu town - after the industrial area (Obote Road) - takes ages owing to the bumpy road past the airport and for abt 15km - but still one can reach abt 70-80kph. Then it turns into a runway and you can let loose more horses up to Maseno and beyond. Abt 60km before Busia, what used to be tolerable and navigable potholes, are now craters - perhaps owing to the rains. Very baaad stuff. Vis a Vis August 2009, we spent abt 45 minutes longer on this section. Abt 25km before Busia it gets better and you can unfetter the horses once again. But abt 2-3km before Busia, you need to be wary of converting cyclists into bonnet ornaments....
112km - 2.5 hours (again, no mad rush - next stop was Jinja)
(Quick summary of Uganda - Busia - Kampala - 9/10 - losing one point but not owing to road conditions, rather the speed traps in small t
townships where the limit is 50kph)
After the craters leading up to Busia, we decided to make a detour on the way back - to Eldoret via Mumias, Bungoma - the road between Busia and Mumias is pretty GOOD - fast ride here. From Mumias to Bungoma there is a pretty bad section but not as bad as what we avoided if we went via Kisumu.
Bungoma-Webuye-Eldoret - 8/10
- some sections where trailers have made the road lumpy - trailers creep down the hill precariously - esp the tankers whose "moving" cargo hasx the opposite effect of a gyroscope....we found one trailer halfway across the road.....
Eldoret - Mau Summit - 9/10
Define "Whoosh" - all sections opened up - maybe a 200 metre diversion somewhere (railwaycrossing perhaps?) - but negligible vis a vis before when Eldoret - Nakuru would take abt 4 hours - this time it took abt 2.5 hours.
Owing to timing - we did not do Nakuru-Nyahururu-Nyeri-Nanyuki right away but we did it last week starting in Nairobi.
Nairobi-Thika - very strenuous and arduous - some dangerous diversions between Allsops and Githurai - some diversions after Kahawa....
Thika - Karatina - 9/10.
Karatina - Kiganjo - 10/10 (decent market at a place called Chaka where Mrs D got what appeared to be half a tonne of tomatoes at one tenth the cost...)
Kiganjo-Nanyuki (45km) - 9/10 - (even in a very heavy downpour...)
Again, thanks all for your earlier inputs and I hope the above will be useful for anyone planning any of these routes...