On the Equator, at the foot of Mount Kenya — bush aviation and big-cat ranches
Nanyuki is a market town sitting almost exactly on the Equator at 1,950 metres elevation, with the jagged peaks of Mount Kenya (5,199m, Africa's second-highest mountain) as its backdrop. It is the primary service town for the Laikipia Plateau — a vast area of private conservancies and community ranches north of the mountain that collectively form one of Kenya's most important wildlife refugia outside the national parks, hosting large populations of elephant, lion, cheetah, wild dog, reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, and northern white rhino (the last three males on earth are at Ol Pejeta Co…
Nanyuki was founded as a settler town in 1907 by Ewart Grogan, one of the first Europeans to traverse Africa from Cape to Cairo on foot. The fertile Laikipia Plateau attracted British settlers who established large cattle and wheat farms — many of which have subsequently been converted to wildlife conservancies as the economics of cattle ranching declined relative to conservation and tourism. Mount Kenya was first summited by Halford Mackinder in 1899 via a route that passed through the Nanyuki area.