Month by month
Samburu in April
April is the peak of the long rains and the heaviest month per storm on the whole card: 70 mm across seven rain days, against November's 91 mm spread over eleven. Nights are the warmest of the year at 20.6°C, the bush is thick, and the game is as scattered as it gets.
If you only want the answer
The hardest month for a short first visit, and the emptiest for anyone who comes anyway. Seven rain days deliver 70 mm, the sandy luggas run, and the animals no longer depend on the Ewaso Ng'iro. The Nairobi flights drop to low season on 1 April, though the $85 and $70 gate charges stay exactly where they are.
Fewer storms, bigger ones
April's normals are 70 mm over seven rain days, days of 31.5°C and nights of 20.6°C, the warmest nights of the year alongside May. It is the wettest month of the long rains and the second wettest of the year after November.
The way that rain arrives is what separates it from the short rains. November spreads 91 mm across eleven days, roughly 8 mm at a time. April concentrates 70 mm into seven, about 10 mm a time, so you lose whole afternoons rather than odd hours, and the ground takes longer to recover between storms.
Luggas, tracks and the bridge
Take a 4x4 with high clearance and treat it as non-negotiable this month. The tracks inside the reserves are sandy and follow the riverbanks and the dry watercourses, and in April a lugga carries running water instead of dust. Samburu County describes its internal network as being in good to decent condition, with washboard corrugations on the main routes, and that description is written for the dry months.
The approach stays straightforward. The A2 from Nairobi through Nanyuki, Isiolo and Archer's Post is continuous tarmac, and only the short run from the highway to each gate is murram. One April note for 2026: KeNHA closed the A2 between Isiolo and Kirish from 17 April to 15 May to rebuild a failed section of pavement, which is a reminder that this stretch is under repair rather than a reason to change your route.
The bridge over the Ewaso Ng'iro between Samburu and Buffalo Springs is the crossing to ask about. The river destroyed it in March 2010, the British Army rebuilt it and it reopened that November, it partly washed away again in 2011 and forced a 45 km detour, and it was repaired in February 2015. Nothing since reports another washout, though no official confirmation for 2026 exists, so check with your camp before planning a wet-season crossing.
Why some people come anyway
April empties the reserves. Safarilink's low season starts on 1 April and runs to 15 June, which is where the availability and the flexibility are, and the camps that publish anything at all are at their quietest. Sarara's rate card, out in Namunyak Conservancy, runs from $1,110 per person a night in the quiet months up to $1,515 in July and August, which gives a sense of the spread.
What you get for the inconvenience is newborn game, storm light, migrant birds still in residence until the end of the month, and tracks with nobody on them. What you do not get is the dry-season mechanism: from June the river is the only permanent water and the game comes to it, and in April there is water everywhere.