- I'll put that down,
to things I did not expect to see.
Good morning from Wilson airport here in Nairobi.
Now, you can't come to Kenya
without heading off to try and see some wildlife.
And that's exactly what we're going to be
trying to do today.
We're taking a trip out to the Maasai Mara,
which is one of the world's most famous national parks
and game reserves in the hope
of maybe seeing a few wild animals.
It's home to loads of little dirt airstrips
that we're going to be flying around,
as well as quite a lot of wildlife too.
So why not come on with me and
take a flight out to the Maasai Mara.
Now, Wilson airport is a little bit strange.
It doesn't have one terminal building like most airports.
Every airline has their own building that they fly from,
which is pretty confusing.
If you're flying with multiple airlines,
like I am going to be over this week.
You've just basically got to find whichever
building your airline flies from.
Today, I'm flying with Safarilink,
who I think are down this way.
- Hi morning.
- Morning, how are you?
- I am very well. Thank you. How are you?
- Where are you flying to?
- All right. Thank you very much.
- You're welcome - Thank you.
- Hey, good morning. How are you?
- How are you? - Yeah, good. Thank you.
Can I get an Americano and a chocolate croissant, please?
Thank you.
I'll be over there, I've got somewhere quiet. Thank you.
- Safarilink operate a fleet of Cessna 208 Caravans
here at Wilson airport.
There's quite a few of them out there and you can see the parking
area here is absolutely chaos.
The planes just abandoned one on top of the other.
It's quite crazy. I don't know how they move,
but in any case all checked in.
I got my coffee.
Now, one cool thing about flying in this
part of the world is that your boarding pass
has the aircraft registration on it,
which is really handy if you're an avgeek like me.
Walking on the ramp here can be pretty precarious indeed.
There's just so many aircraft
and so many passengers wandering around.
I have no idea how they don't have more incidents here.
Our ride over to the Mara today then is this,
Cessna 208 Caravan delivered brand new
to Safarilink in 2012.
Now the flights over to the Maasai Mara
don't really have a set schedule.
They just kind of head off twice a day
and fly just to where they need to pick up
and drop off the passengers.
- We're going to have to stops in the Mara today,
the first stop is going to be Naboisho, Ol Seki
for Russell family.
Then the second stop is going to be Olkiombo
for Mr. Alireza, Julia,
and Mr. Noel
- [Noel] Yes
- With us from here til we get back.
- [Noel] Yes, yes, yes.
- So first stop, 40 minutes
to the next stop eight minutes from the first stop.
- [Noel] Now, today I'd be remaining on board
for the entire duration of the shuttle flight
over to the Mara through both airfields
and then back to Nairobi.
(airplane engine revs)
(upbeat music)
First leg today, there was a 37 minute hop
over to Ol Seki airstrip in the
remote Naibosho area of the Maasai Mara.
Leaving Nairobi behind, the weather soon cleared up
and we got some great views of the Maasai Mara down below.
Pretty soon we started our descent down
into the remote Ol Seki airstrip.
At this point in the trip, I was absolutely amazed.
I'd almost expected to see some herds of animals
from the high up but nothing prepared me
for the sheer amount of wildlife so close to the airstrip.
I was amazed to see a family of elephants
not far from the airstrip,
although the camera didn't really do them justice,
but they were there. I promise.
Now I was shocked that down, there's things I did not expect
to see here on this flight,
I knew that they would be kind of animals out here,
but not quite that close,
we literally passed a herd of elephants
right at the end of the runway.
Unbelievable.
Did not expect that.
So cool.
We had a short wait here at Ol Seki,
where we dropped off some passengers
to an exclusive lodge in the area.
Now, since returning from this trip,
the UK once again has gone into lockdown again, yay!
We're all back to exploring the world virtually using the
power of our computers. On that note,
I've partnered with iniBuilds to give away a copy of the
latest version of the X-Plane fly simulator, X-Plane 11,
it's an incredible flight sim,
and they're also throwing in their latest Add-on, their
incredible Airbus A300 simulator,
which is one of the most detailed representations
of the A300 that's ever been made for a flight simulator.
All you have to do to take part
and win that copy of X-Plane 11 and the A300 other one
is to hit that subscribe button,
which is somewhere down here.
And also leave me a comment down below of where
you will be traveling to as soon as lockdown is over.
I can't wait to see some of your responses.
In addition to that, if I wasn't good enough already,
iniBuilds are offering 20% off the A300 simulator
to the first 200 people who click the link
down in the description below.
iniBuilds has also create a whole load
of liveries for flight simulators,
so you can travel the world virtually
in pretty much any airline you like.
On that note, back to the video.
We soon powered up the engines
to get on our way to the next stop.
We touched out past herds of wildebeest
watching our departure.
Next stop today, there was an 11-minute ride
over to Olkiombo airstrip about 19 miles to the west.
We flew just a 1000 feet above the ground on this hop,
giving us some great views of the wildlife down below.
After what seemed like no time at all,
we were on our approach down into Olkiombo airstrip.
Once again, the aircraft here come really
close to the runway, in fact,
just recently an aircraft was damaged when it hit
a herd of wildebeest on the runway here in Olkiombo.
Olkiombo seems a lot busier than the previous airstrip
at Ol Seki and there were quite a few cars here taking
passengers off to the various game lodges in the area.
- Okay, welcome to Olkiombo
Mr. Noel, I request you...
- So here then at Olkiombo airstrip in the Maasai Mara,
stop two of today before we head back to Nairobi.
And I have to say,
Safari, so goodie.
Little stop here while they disinfect the aircraft,
get a few more passengers and
then we're heading back to Nairobi.
And it was indeed soon time to get back on board
for our ride back to Nairobi.
The flight back to Nairobi then,
took us on pretty much a direct track heading east,
flight time for this leg was 49 minutes
cruising at 12500 feet.
Before too long, the bright lights of Nairobi
appeared in the distance and we started our
descent down into Wilson airport.
- [TAS] Traffic. Traffic.
A round trip to the Maasai Mara with Safarilink
cost me 250 US dollars or around 186 pounds
whilst pricey by African standards,
it was a fantastic little ride out
to see one of the great wonders of the world.
- Welcome back to Nairobi, Wilson.
- [Noel] Hello, hi.
Now, despite all airlines having
their own buildings here at Wilson,
you arrive through a centralized customs building.
It really is utter chaos as half the flights
such as mine and the domestic,
and don't need to go through customs and immigration,
but some are international and they do.
I've got no idea how many international passengers end up
arriving here with no passport check
despite following the wrong crowd out the building.
So back here in Nairobi,
after my little trip over to Maasai Mara,
Alright, I want it.
Nice little ride over there
with Safarilink and just,
I find it incredible how close those wild animals
came to the airstrips there.
I mean, I kind of expected that we might see
like herds of something from higher,
but to see those animals so close to the airstrip,
it really was just absolutely phenomenal.
Certainly a bucket list item ticked off for me.
I hope you enjoyed that too.
Don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
I've got so much more cool stuff
coming from out of Africa on this trip,
and you're not going to want to miss any off it.
In the meantime though.
Thanks for watching.
See you on the next one.