Ngong Hills

The Ngong Hills are the ridge on Nairobi’s western horizon: a short chain of grassy summits with the city spread out on one side and the Rift Valley dropping away on the other. They are the capital’s default day walk, the site of Kenya’s first wind farm, and the place a famous grave sits in a private garden at the end of a dirt lane.

What the Ngong Hills Are

The hills form a forest reserve managed by Kenya Forest Service rather than a national park, which is the single fact that governs everything else about visiting. The service records the block as covering 3,077.6 hectares, about 25 kilometres from Nairobi, in northern Kajiado County. Ngong town sits at the northern foot and Kona Baridi at the southern end.

Vegetation is a mix of plantation and indigenous: pine and cypress planted, with sandalwood, acacia and croton among the native species, and open grassland along the tops. Kenya Forest Service lists buffalo, wild pigs, porcupine and dik-dik as resident, their movements driven by drought and forage. Buffalo on a ridge walk are the reason the escort arrangement exists.

The Ridge Walk

The classic outing is the traverse, walked from the northern end near Ngong town south to Kona Baridi, taking four to five undulating hours past the radio masts and the turbines. It is not technical and involves no scrambling, but it climbs and drops repeatedly and is exposed to sun and wind the whole way. The reward is the double view: Nairobi and its national park to the east, the escarpment and the valley floor to the west, with Mount Suswa and Longonot visible on a clear day.

Kenya Forest Service is explicit that anyone hiking up to the peaks should be accompanied by its rangers for security, and taking one is the norm rather than an optional extra. The hills are close enough to a large city to have had incidents, and groups walk together with an escort. The forest is open from 6am to 6pm. Fuller detail on routes and conditions sits on the hiking in Kenya page.

Transport is the awkward half of the trip. Matatu routes 111 and 112 reach Ngong town from the Nairobi railways terminus, but public transport does not reach the trailhead itself, and getting back in the afternoon is harder than getting there in the morning. Most visitors go with a group that provides transport, or arrange a return pickup in advance.

Denys Finch Hatton’s Grave

On the eastern slopes, an obelisk stands over the grave of Denys Finch Hatton, the hunter and pilot of Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa, who died in an aircraft crash in 1931. Blixen wrote that she had pointed out a place high in the hills where she wished to be buried, and that Finch Hatton said he would like the same. She buried him there.

The plaque on the obelisk carries a line from Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of his favourite poems: “He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast.”

Reaching it takes local knowledge. It is not inside the forest reserve and not signposted from the main road. The route runs from the T junction in Ngong town, past the government offices, several kilometres out beyond the tarmac and then up a narrow lane, and the site sits in a well tended private garden behind a gate. Before leaving Kenya, Blixen arranged for land there to be allocated to Kamante, her cook, asking him to look after the grave, and his descendants still keep it. Visitors are expected to ring ahead and be let in rather than simply arrive. Any driver or guide working in Ngong can make the arrangement.

The Wind Farm

The turbines along the ridge belong to KenGen, which describes its Ngong hills wind farm as the first to be developed in East Africa and puts its wind fleet at about 26 megawatts, roughly two per cent of the company’s installed capacity. Kenya Forest Service counts thirty wind energy generation sites in the reserve alongside the communication masts on the high points. Walkers pass directly beneath them, which is part of the character of the walk rather than a blot on it: the hills are a working landscape carrying power and telecommunications for the city below.

Out of Africa Country

The hills are the backdrop of the most widely read book written about Kenya, and the connection is geographical rather than staged. Blixen’s farmhouse, now the Karen Blixen Museum, sits at the foot of the hills in the Nairobi suburb that took her name, and the view from its lawn is the view she described. Most visitors combine the museum and the grave in one outing, sometimes with the hills themselves, sometimes not. The museum is covered under Nairobi, and the broader subject under heritage tours.

Cycling and Other Uses

Rideable tracks run below the ridge line, and the hills appear on Nairobi mountain biking circuits alongside the escarpment road and the forests north of the city; see cycling in Kenya. Kenya Forest Service also permits picnics, camping, team building, weddings and religious gatherings in the reserve, which is why a weekday walk and a Sunday walk can feel like different places entirely.

Fees, Access and Timing

The Ngong Hills are a forest reserve, so the Kenya Wildlife Service conservation fee schedule does not apply here. Entry is charged by Kenya Forest Service at its office in Ngong or at the barrier on the trail, and the service does not publish a current rate online, directing visitors to contact the forester in charge instead. Confirm the fee and the ranger arrangement before setting out rather than assuming a park tariff.

The best months are the drier ones, January to February and June to September, when the grass is short and the views open up. The long rains from March to May turn the ridge slippery and bring cloud that closes the whole point of the walk. Whatever the season, start early: the tops are exposed, the sun at this altitude is fierce, and the afternoon wind is strong enough to be tiring.

Where the Ngong Hills Fit

This is a half day or a day from Nairobi, not a destination that needs a night. It pairs naturally with the Karen Blixen Museum and the Nairobi suburbs at the foot of the hills, or with a drive on towards Naivasha and the Rift, since the road west drops off the escarpment into the valley. For visitors wanting a harder day within reach of the city, Mount Longonot and the Aberdare edge both demand considerably more.

Ngong Hills Questions