Nairobians love dashing to Naivasha as an ideal holiday destination due to its proximity to the city and its many attractions, given that it is nestled around Lake Naivasha.
The town, with a name borrowed from the Maasai, nai’posha (meaning rough water), which the many odieros who settled there could not pronounce, brags of game sanctuaries (Soysambu), national parks (Hell’s Gate), craters and gorges.
The numerous flower farms there contribute to Naivasha’s temperate climate fit for urbanites with loose change to unwind in debauchery and decadence that was pioneered by the Happy Valley set who made it their hunting ground.
Then there are the many hotels like the colonial Lake Naivasha Country Club, cottages, camping sites like Oloiden Camp and the largest natural geothermal heated spa in Africa at Olkaria.
To add to the allure of Naivasha are many colourful personalities who once called it home, including the Delamere family and Lord Galbraith Cole (who was buried not far from Lake Elementaita).
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In fact, the 1916 house where he lived with his wife, Lady Eleanor Cole, still stands where they had the Kikopey ranch. Kikopey, now a famed stopover meat joint, is fleshed from the Maasai word chegopei which means milky water.
Confined to a wheelchair by chronic rheumatoid arthritis, Lord Cole shot himself in 1929.
Funny how it was at Lord Cole’s home that James Fox wrote huge chunks of White Mischief, the masterpiece that chronicles the excesses of the Happy Valley set.
Published in 1982, White Mischief was turned into a film in 1987, starring Charles Dance and Greta Saatchi.
Then there was the naturalist Joan Root (who was murdered trying to save Lake Naivasha from pollution by the same flower farms that employ thousands in Naivasha) and Bruce McKenzie, the only jungu Cabinet minister in the government of President Kenyatta I.
Did you know that Lake Naivasha Country Club - then known as Sparks Hotel - was once the biggest airport hotel in Kenya?
Well, Imperial Airways of Britain landed their flying boat planes on Lake Naivasha when it opened a route to Cape Town via Naivasha in 1932. Back then, the preferred mode of air transport was flying boats and those nursing jet lags enjoyed their overnight stays at Lake Naivasha - which became Nairobi School until after World War II in 1945.
