A Road Trip from Nairobi to Nyahururu, 30 Years Ago
It was a bright morning in Nairobi when we set out from Buruburu, navigating through the bustling city traffic as we headed north. It was myself, the late Wanyeki Kihoro, his friend George and the daughter of George who was to start school in Nyahurururu. Our destination was Nyahururu, home of the famous Thomson’s Falls, but the journey itself was filled with surprising discoveries.
This all came back to me like it was yesterday, when Vickie Wanjiru Kihoro found some old pictures. Hopefully she finds more going through her museum’s archives
As we drove through Kikuyu, I noticed a strange sight—dozens, no, hundreds of people, seated along the roadside and in small workshops, meticulously tying fishing flies. Their fingers moved with incredible precision, wrapping colourful feathers and threads around tiny hooks. What caught my attention even more was the name on the boxes of hooks: Mustad, Norway.
It was fascinating to see this unexpected connection between a small Kenyan town and a fishing culture halfway across the world. The locals were skilled artisans, crafting flies for export to Europe and North America. I remember thinking how remarkable it was that these tiny hooks, made in Norway, would travel thousands of kilometres to Kenya, only to be transformed into handcrafted flies before being shipped back to avid fishermen across the globe.
The road stretched on through Limuru’s tea plantations, their green fields rolling endlessly across the hills. We passed through Naivasha, catching glimpses of the shimmering waters and the sight of Mount Longonot in the distance. As we climbed higher into the Aberdare Ranges, the air became cooler, the landscapes more dramatic.
Finally, we arrived in Nyahururu, a town bustling with life and crowned by the cascade of Thomson’s Falls. The falls were spectacular, plunging 74 meters into the gorge below, surrounded by lush greenery and mist. I stood there, taking in the beauty of Kenya’s highlands and reflecting on the journey—from the bustling streets of Nairobi to the quiet town of Nyahururu, connected by stories of people, places, and unexpected global ties.
Even today, the memory of those fly-tiers in Kikuyu and the Norwegian hooks stays with me. It was a small but powerful reminder of how interconnected the world is, even in the most surprising ways.
