Hell's Gate Guided Tour with Option Boat Ride at Lake Naivasha

Hells gate, Kenya

Bikeride through the Canyon and the spektaculare view from the viewpoint where the movie "Lion king" was shot. The driver, Jeff, was good and friendly. Spoke very good English. There guide on the biketour, Gadaffi, as well! Good sence of humor 😊

via Viator

Excellent Tour

The tour was great. Stephen is an excellent guide and very knowledgeable about all the animal species and landmarks that you would see on this trip. He is incredibly courteous and friendly. The bike ride through Hell’s Gate was fantastic. It’s a great experience to be biking alongside amazing wildlife. Stephen made sure that everything was timed perfectly. I would highly recommend this trip with Gracepatt to anyone looking for a day activity from Nairobi, even if you have already done a safari.

Response from the operator: Thank you so much Omar for giving us chance to serve you and going ahead leaving a great review. We are happy you had a fantastic day out with our driver guide Stephen. We look forward to meeting and serving you again in the near future.

via Viator

Amazing one day trip, thank you to Stephen

Stephen Mutuku my driver is amazing guy and guide. I was lucky enough to be the only passenger on this tour, and enjoyed it to the maximum. In the National Park I was lucky enough to see many zebras, antilopes, warthogs and giraffes at a very close distance. And take a lot of cool pictures. After that we went to Lake Naivasha where I saw many birds and hippos. Beautiful view and nice ride on the boat. I had a nice day and a lot of positive emotions, trip to remember. Defiantly will recommend to everyone.

Response from the operator: Thank you so much AnastasijaM for giving us an opportunity to serve you and going ahead leaving an amazing review. We are really happy you enjoyed your Nairobi National Park and Lake Naivasha day out with our guide Stephen. We look forward to meeting and serving you again in the near future. Regards

via Tripadvisor

Loved the bike ride and our driver, could have done without the visit to Lake Naivasha

I will start with what I loved about this trip: my driver Francis and the bike ride through Hell's Gate with my guide Gaddafi! Francis was right on time (even early) to pick me up at my apartment in Nairobi city center and he was an absolute pleasure to spend the day with. He's kind, he's super funny, and he kept me (us) safe the entire trip. He's a true professional and has a great time showing tourists beautiful Kenya. There was one other woman we picked up before heading to Hell's Gate to get our bikes and then begin cycling. We joined up with 2 more tourists at the gate for 4 total people. It was really nice to get to know the other tourists, and Gaddafi was a fantastic guide. He kept checking that everyone was cycling ok behind him, gave us tips for navigating some of the more sandy parts of one of the roads, gave us lots of unique insights about the park - overall a really great experience. The gorge was closed by the park to hikers because of rain dangers (it can happen, and it's not Gracepatt's fault for that). I actually think if we had done the hike down into the gorge I would have been too tired to cycle back at the end! It really was a magical experience to see Hell's Gate by bike. You do have to cycle a small bit uphill on the way out but I just put my bike in higher gear and it was really no problem at all (the slightest incline). Some people wrote reviews that the bikes aren't in great condition but really this is an easy trail you don't need a fancy bike, mine was comfortable and the gears / brakes worked just great. The lunch at Lake Naivasha was absolutely delicious! But....I have more feedback on that later. My criticisms of the trip: overall this tour is sold as a guided tour, half day at Hell's Gate and half day at Lake Naivasha. The way I viewed Lake Naivasha is that the boat tour is part of the tour (otherwise you just sit at the beach, there is no alternative activity they provide for you) it's simply that you pay extra for the service. I struggled with this part in writing my review since it's hard to give criticism to an activity that is run by the boat operators and not Gracepatt. However, I ultimately arrived at this conclusion that I should include the criticism in my review because of the way the trip is titled/described and that there is no alternative activity offered. I did not enjoy the boat ride at Lake Naivasha and I wish I had skipped that part. After cycling all morning, we arrived to Lake Naivasha around 2pm (it's maybe 20 minutes from the point you drop off your bikes after Hell's Gate). Myself and another tourist were starving and asked if we could eat lunch before doing the boat trip. But we were told that they cook lunch while you are on the boat trip (you order before you head out). So we did not end up eating lunch until after 4pm as a result. That's entirely too late in the day to offer lunch after having cycled for 2-3 hours in 28 degree heat. Next I had read online that you can rent a boat for $20. I had also read that if you get a group of people together the price is still $20 (since you are just paying for the price of the boat and operator of the boat). However even though there were 4 people in my group they charged us $15 per person. I paid the price since I had already planned to go for $20 in case I was the only person on the trip. There were far fewer animals and birds hanging around the lake than other trip reviews lead me to believe. Ok, so perhaps it was an off day and I can't fault the boat operator for that. However, without prompt from any of us tourists the boat operator on 3 occasions used tactics to get animals to look up at us for photo opportunities. He revved the engine of the boat to scare the hippos so they would look up out of the water, he threw a fish in the water so that an eagle would swoop down in front of us from a tree, and he clapped his hands at some deer drinking at the waters edge so that they would look up at us. I intentionally left my camera down and did not snap photos so that the boat operator wouldn't see me enjoying the results of his interactions with the animals and feel encouraged to keep doing it. I cannot positively support tour operators interacting with wild animals like this. Overall, I think the price of the trip is fair, but I think some good improvements could be made for the second half of the tour at Lake Naivasha since it is advertised as a "Hell's Gate and Lake Naivasha Guided Tour" such as some alternative activity to the boat ride for people that do not want to support interfering with the animals. Also the ability to each lunch earlier after a difficult bike ride would be more suitable for a lot of people.

Response from the operator: Thank you Shewoolf for the review of Hell's Gate and lake Naivasha I salute you for being honest that the first part of Hell's Gate was good while the second part of the Boat Ride at lake Naivasha was miss handled by the Boat rider. The boat riders have no permission to disturb any animal. We are very sorry about this part. Infact our driver guide Francis was supposed to intervene about the payment issues and to arrange early lunch booking so that by the time you were our of Hell's Gate you find your food ready.

via Tripadvisor

What an outstanding day*

Francis, our driver, arrieved at the hotel right on time to pick us up at 7:00AM. It was a foggy and rainy morning, buthere assured us the weather would be much better once we got out of Nairobi. The fog and rain added to the road conditions, which in Nairobi are not ideal to begin with. Francis was an outstanding driver and we felt totally at ease with him behind the wheel as there is ot way that I would have wanted to drive. First stop was teh Great Rift Valley Overlook. We stopped in between a couple of buildings and took a few pictures across the valley to to the floor below. About this time we could see the sun poking through the clouds. We were back in the van after the purchase of a small trinket for the gift shop. Next stop was Lake Naivasha and Hells Gate National Park. We stopped at the last intersection before the park entrance and were fitted for bicyceles and made a few small adjustments to each of them. We drove on towards the entrance another mile and a half up the road where the bikes were delivered via boda boda. Ibrahim our guide for the bike portion, took over from there. We stopped at several locations on the way out to see rock formations, zebras, gazzelles, pumbas, and giraffes. It was about 8 or 9 km to the turn around at a masai village market. We walked through and hiked a trail along the rim of the gorge to a rock formation that was the inspiration for pride rock in the Lion King. We took a few picutres and started the hike back. FYI.... The hike was, at most 2 miles round trip. The return trip on the bike is a slight uphill all the way back, but very doable. We rode along side a pack of pumbas that eventually passed us and crossed the road before disappearing into the brush. After returning the bike we were back in the van for a short trip to the boat ride and lunch. We ordered our food in advance and did a one hour boat ride with Joe. It was an amazing ride. More birds than one could count. An enjoyable, for us, hippo chase unfolded right in front of us. One hippo shased the other out of the lake around a loop and back in the lake before either hijinks or tempers cooled a little. Lunch was good, I had beef stew, she had fish filets. We were soon back in the van headed for Nairobi. Francis was a great driver and we enjoyed his company along the way. Tip: Dont forge the sun block. It was only about 75 degrees they day that we went, but the sun because to the time of the year was still pretty much right over head most of the day.

Response from the operator: Thank you so much Craig for your exquisite review of your adventure with us. We are more than humbled that both of you had an outstanding day out with our driver guide Francis. We look forward to meeting and serving you again in the near future..

via Tripadvisor