Inland navigation

I want to drive the "rough road" along the lake's shore to Loiyangalani in the south. After leaving Sibiloi and being completely sunken into my audio book "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" I miss the junction and drive 5 km in the wrong direction towards North Horr. Wtf? There was no junction! I head back to where OpenStreetMap (OSM) claims the junction to be and indeed find A BLOODY FOOTPATH splitting from the gravel road. Are you serious? On OSM this is tagged as "secondary road" which is simply wrong and has been already corrected at the time of writing. Ok, let's try it. The problem is that I am running out of diesel. I knew that after Marsabit there would be no filling station and I have one jerrycan left as backup with which I calculated to be able to reach the next station after Loiyangalani but not further! If this path here along the shore turns out to be a dead end, at one certain point I will not be able to turn back to any other populated place where I could find diesel (in plastic bottles). No risk, no fun! Goat milk I will always find around here ...
So, after 2-3 kilometers the footpath widens slightly and two tracks become barely identifiable with some motorbike footprints. Also there appear stone markings at the sides. But this track has not been used by cars for weeks! And indeed on a hilltop "the road" is blocked by thorny bushes in order to signalise "do not proceed beyond this point". The locals do that to close the roads in case of a landslide or untraversable river, for example. I encountered the latter earlier in my previous mountain exploration but continued and it turned out to be OK because all rivers are dust-dry since mid of January. The last rains were a month ago and so I decide again to drive around this blockade.
Right decision! It is a wonderfully wild drive, indeed with broad, sandy river crossings. All dry as expected. The low sun is casting warm colours. After around 35 km - while reaching the village of Moite behind the coastal hills - the track gets better and some human beings appear again.Läs mer