DAD STORIES: The joy of going on adventures with my son

Louis Muiruri and his son. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • I want him to spend more time outdoors, and have fun and adventure.

    During the Madaraka Day weekend, we had an exciting adventure in the wild.

  • Follow #DadStoriesKE for more stories like these or visit this Father's Day 2018 link.

My five-year-old son is at that stage where he can stay glued to the television screen all day, when there is nothing interesting to do.

But I want him to spend more time outdoors, and have fun and adventure.

He has all along shown tremendous interest in outdoor activities, and I hope that it will rub off his younger brother who is still in diapers.

My son completed his first 10km run at the age of three. He has a highly competitive attitude and although I could tell that the run was taking toll on him, he insisted that he was doing fine. He ran ahead of me throughout because he wanted it to be on record that he defeated me.

Having grown up with an absentee father, I did not have the privilege of experiencing outdoors as much as I would have loved to. My first major trip was in Standard Six, and it was also the first time I boarded a bus. Our school had organised an educational trip to Mwea Tebere irrigation scheme so we could learn about rice growing.

TRAVEL AND FUN

God granting us good health, I would like my son to travel to every corner of this country by the time he is 10 years old, and hopefully conquer a mountain in his early teens.

During the Madaraka Day weekend, I booked him for a camping expedition with Cheetah Revolution Safaris. The expedition was to take us through Tsavo West, Tsavo East, Lake Jipe and Lake Chala.

I realised that travelling on such an expedition with a minor is not as easy a task. As an experienced hiker, I know the hustle of packing adequately for outdoors. Now combine that with the fact that I had to pack for two.

Outdoor gear is different from what the boy would wear on a normal visit to the mall, and I had to take him through the basics. The packing had to consider light wear for the day, but also consider warm clothing for the night. For cold weather, I had secured a pair of hand gloves, a woollen cap, a neck scarf and a fleece jacket for him.

He was truly excited and he could hardly wait for nightfall so that he could use his sleeping bag. He could also not understand how a person fits inside a tent, and I had to retrieve older photos of myself in a tent so that he appreciates it.

Although I had set the wake up alarm for 4am in order to prepare for a 5.30am departure from Nairobi, he was already up at 3am! He said he could not sleep.

We were at the pick-up point at exactly 5.30am and the beautiful overland truck was already there waiting for us. He was overly excited, and I could perfectly connect with his situation. Even at my age I still derive a lot of amusement from riding in an overland.

The ride through the parks didn’t disappoint. He already knows most of the wild animals by name, and we engaged in a fierce spotting and naming game. He beat me when I spotted what I thought was a deer, and he gleefully corrected me that it was a dik-dik.

WHOLESOME EXPERIENCE

The visit to Mzima Springs was the key highlight of our day as we spotted hippos and crocodiles at close range in their natural habitat. We set camp at a Kenya Wildlife Service camp where we also enjoyed a bonding session by the bonfire before retiring to our tents.

Day two saw us in Tsavo East where we spotted large herds of elephants and set camp again within a private lodge.

Although we could not take the boat ride at Lake Jipe due to personal safety concerns, we enjoyed the lakeside ambience and the views of hippos, elephants and ostriches that were lazing in and around the lake.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to Lake Chala on day 3 of the expedition. It is probably the most picturesque sight I have ever set my eyes upon. We swam in the serenely blue waters of the lake, and the braver ones took rowing boat rides further into the lake.

It was an exciting adventure and at the end of the long weekend, my son had many stories to tell. I am sure they will be enough to enthral his classmates for the rest of the term.

I also had the opportunity to observe him in a different setting and one thing that really impressed me is that he is comfortable in an adult setting and he is very easy to be around with outdoors.

As for now, he is really looking forward to the expedition to Lake Paradise in Marsabit later in the year.

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Follow #DadStoriesKE for more stories like these or visit this Father's Day 2018 link.

What would you like your dad to know this Father’s Day? Can you say it in 800 words? Email: [email protected]