Two Thousand ! ! !

Well - I never expected the number of visitors to reach this level - I hope you have all found something of use / interest !

I've been travelling elsewhere since Kenya - see my main blog for more details.

Wandering Wildebeest

Just come across this intersting site that reports on the GPS monitoring of Wildebeest movements in various parts of Kenya.

I understand that there are still some herds of Wildebeest in the Mara but most have now gone South and re-entered Tanzania.

Gennet Guests

Whilst I was at Serian I wrote a number of pieces for their blog.  This is the latest that they have published (The photo isn't mine).

New Team Member

Every evening our guests meet about 7.30pm for a few drinks before dinner, it's an excellent opportunity to swap stories of the day's adventures whilst sitting around the fire.

Over recent months they have often been joined by a pair of Gennets who, at the edge of the shadows, come to take a few food scraps left out for them. As the months have passed, they have become braver and have provided many guests with excellent close-up photo opportunities.

Last night they introduced their new addition to the team - one of their young. It wasn't quite as brave as its parents and disappeared as soon as there was any movement by those present. Hopefully, as it become more confident it will join its parents when they regularly delight our guests.

Gennets are found throughout much of Africa and even in parts of Spain and Southern France. They are slender cat like creatures and have been called 'rat-like' Leopards but only weigh in at between 2.5kgs being about 45cms long. They will eat almost anything they can find including snakes.

Death of a Disco

It is with great sadness that I must announce the death of my Disco.  After taking me on many adventures around southern Africa and being my trusty steed for a number of 4x4 RTV competitions, it has finally succumbed to the dreaded corrosion and must be consigned to the great scrapheap in the sky.

For those of you with a similar vehicle and want to pick over the carcass, there are a number of goodies that I've taken off that might be of use.  Have a look here for more information

Two Sun Rise

Another piece I wrote for the Serian blog :

Peering into the Stygian starless black that cloaks a vista that you know stretches into the far far distance you can barely see your hand in front of your nose. The dark gradually leeches away, colours start to return as black surrenders to shades of grey. Then to purples as the pink harbingers of the day start to show the horizon.

An orange orb - the harbinger of another glorious day - starts to float into the sky, seeming to speed up as the seconds pass and then to slow as soon as it breaks free of the horizon.

. . . and then another red orb appears, rising from the distant plain but this one doesn't float in serene silence but bursts from the ground with a roar that would have put many dinosaurs to shame. Slung below the orb is a large basket full of guests that have risen from their comfortable beds at a very early hour.

With a couple of bumps they rise into the cool air and, with a couple of more saurian bellows, they are floating up to where only the eagles and vultures usually venture. Slowly they drift across the plains, with a whole new perspective to what had before only been seen from the back of a vehicle.

Soaring over the plains, the lines of Wildebeest extend even further, the herds seem even bigger and the distances infinite. With shrill trumpets, families of Elephants turn, protecting their young in their midst, to challenge this new avian monster. As its shadow passes over the water startled Hippos grunt their displeasure and slip below the surface leaving only their eyes, ears and noses above the water to monitor its passage.

However, many animals completely ignore this new passing cloud. Below the Hyena still lopes along looking for an easy kill or somebody else's left overs. The male Impala still tries to keep his unruly harem together and away from his rivals. And if anything so insignificance could disturb his regal slumber, the pride male remains oblivious to anything but his dreams of fat Wildebeest.

Every type of sun must eventually set and the balloon borne passenger eventually drift earthwards. Awaiting them, under a sheltering Acacia tree is the reward for their intrepid adventure : a champagne breakfast.

Unfortunately, the photos not mine as I didn't have a King's Ransom to go balloon flying - even if I could have got up by 0430 !

Continued interest

Many thanks to all of you from all over the world that continue to follow my blog.

As a result of a number of factors, I had to return to the UK earlier that I had originally hoped - that's life !  However, the Africa Bug is still creating an itch that must be scratched, so I'm already thinking "where next ?".

There are still bits of my Kenya experience that I want to add to the blog, so they will be trickling on to the site as the days go by.  I'll also be going back to add relevant photos to past postings now I have a decent internet connection !

I've had some "Comments" which you can see on the Blog and a number of direct e'mails - many thanks to you all & especially the occasional comments about my words & snaps.  It would be good to hear from even more of you.

Photographs

Uploading all the pictures to Flickr takes too long as you can only do it a few at a time.  So, being lazy, I've put them all on Facebook which allows you to load them all in one go.

Even if you aren't on Facebook, you can see them if you click here.

Serian Safari Camp : A Guest's Video

A video of Serian Safari Camp - my place of work - posted on YouTube . . .

Mara Moments 2

Further details of this unfortunate occurence appears in the Conservancy Chief Executive's Monthly Newsletter for July.

Mara Moments

The following has recently appeared on the official blog for the Mara Conservancy :

"A party of Kenyan friends were camping at one of our private campsites when a group of armed men entered the camp in the early evening. Shots were fired leaving one man dead and two people injured.

We immediately deployed our rangers and co-operated with the GSU, KWS and the Police. At this time it is not permitted to give any more information on the case, we have however boosted security in the area and now insist that all campers hire armed rangers during their stay."

Following some media coverage in the UK, a number of my friends have contacted me to make sure that we weren't involved and that we were OK.  We had left the area some days before the incident, so I could confirm that everything was OK with us.
 
When we were camping in the Mara we didn't have armed askari / guards and felt perfectly safe all the time but I do understand the Conservancy's new policy.