NBO and NYK

Posted on by cassmob

My 2025 A to Z theme is Airports, Airstrips, Aircraft, and Airlines I’ve known and flown with. I’ll be using IATA codes where they’re available. My inner travel agent emerges at this point as I’m the FTO (family travel organiser) and now, the online travel agent.

NBO    Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, Kenya.

We always joke with our family that they can get work anywhere, so long as it’s somewhere we can visit. And so it happened that when our eldest daughter went to Nairobi for three years we just had to visit and go on safari.

Less than a month before our arrival the Nairobi airport had a massive fire in which “The international arrival and departure units were completely destroyed”. It certainly made for an arrival that wasn’t easy to forget this airport where luggage came out helter-skelter and was walked all over by the baggage handlers…I was glad we didn’t have hard-side clamshell suitcases which didn’t do well in the melee. we were fingerprinted and immigration completed in large marquees. The three of us were super excited to get outside and meet up with eldest daughter. I shared this note on Facebook.

The lengthy drive to her home was chaotic and demanding of the driver with crazy busy traffic and people everywhere. We were pleased she’d bought a 4WD.

4 Sept 2013

Interesting arrival at Nairobi after the conflagration of the (international) arrivals hall burnt down. Loved the “inspire workers” signs…when you lift the bags you help lift Kenya. They have done so well to regroup with lots of marquees (wedding anyone?) and tents marked “business lounge tent 3” etc. Luggage sorting and collection was “interesting”.. pity the poor people whose bags had split/been split.

Hmm, I’m pondering some of the anomalies in these dates.

NYK     Nanyuki Laikipia Airport, Kenya

After our safari to Elephant Bedroom Camp, we returned to the Nairobi domestic airport, Nairobi Wilson (WIL) but the flight needed to refuel en route so we landed at Nanyuki Airport. For us, it provided echoes of life in PNG, with refuelling being done from drums. It was also exciting because of its location on the equator.

I think this is the only time we’ve stood at the equator.
Refueling at Laikipia
If there’s a coffee to be had, my husband will find it 🙂

Have you ever visited family in another part of the world? Was it a fun experience? Did you fly or drive?

19 thoughts on “NBO and NYK”

  1. I remember my daughter and her husband flew to Africa BC (before children) and lost their luggage (hiking boots, swimming costume etc). Not sure which airport but she asked me to try and find it so I rang a few airports in Africa and got nowhere. When we were in England for a year in 2004 my daughter was already working there and it was fun to meet up with her in London and she also came to visit us for a few weekends and joined our explorations.

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    1. I can well imagine that would have been a needle in a haystack search but so disappointing for them. I hope they were able to replace the items.

      it’s fun meeting up with family when overseas. We also met up with our youngest daughter mid-way through her gap year. Hugs and tears of happiness. The Italians looked on smiling.

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    1. they were surprisingly organised considering that only a few weeks had passed and to be fair there was no orderly way to distribute the luggage.

      we were quite surprised to find ourselves at the equator 🙂

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  3. when I lived in Michigan we used to visit our Canadian cousins. Since they only lived right across the Detroit river in Windsor, Ontario, we just drove over. It was a day trip. That was before you needed a passport to cross the border. We had our church picnic in Canada. Just drive over.

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  4. We’ll be in Africa next year so perhaps we will be able to walk on the Equator too.

    Finally I have a couple of airports you may have missed.

    NAR – My first time in Japan when we flew via Tokyo to London. We used often do a city stay to break up the long flight to the mother countries.

    NLK was to attend Congress in Norfolk Island – there were lots of genies on board.

    NTL Newcastle/Williamtown is our local airport which less than an hour away. It has regular flights to many places in Australia.

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  5. More airports I have missed. You are making me jealous! Then I found one for N that I have used years ago in the squash competition days – NSN, Nelson Airport in New Zealand. Not that we got to go there for me as I was not that good however Stephen was a National Referee so this help us get into the competition draws.

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  6. More airports I haven’t visited. I have standing on the equator on my to-do list. So hopefully one day….. My daughter lived many places around the world except home, during her 20s. I also used to tell it was ok with me as long as we could visit. Unfortunately, work often managed to get in the way of us visiting.

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  7. one day I’ll ask all three for a synopsis of the airports they’ve been to…lots more than ours and in exotic places too.

    work is annoying when it gets in the way of holidays but it does replenish the coffers 🙂

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