A rough trip to the dawn of history . . .

Press, 20 September 1980, Page 15

A rough trip to the dawn of history . . .

Returning . southwards we left the deserts and headed for Mount Kenya. The lower slopes of this great mountain are covered with dense, gloomy forest from 2000 m to over 3000 m above sea level, providing a refuge for rhino and leopard as well as a number of more common forest species, including elephant, buffalo, and bushbuck.

' Motorable tracks lead through the forest to the extensive sub-alpine moorlands where isolation and the unusual climate have produced a variety, of strange plants. Species of groundsel and heather tall as trees loom out of the mountain mists, and lobelias ■ grow man-high, amidst an overwhelming silence. When the clouds roll away one glimpses the hanging glaciers, scattered ridges, and soaring buttresses of the 5200 m central peaks. • r After being largely confined to the car in the other national, parks, we found walking and climbing on Mount Kenya a very welcome change; one

of the most irksome aspects of the wildlife parks was the lack of opportunity for seeing animals, on foot. Not far from Mount Kenya is Meru park, probably best known as the place where the Adamsons rehabilitated the lioness Elsa. This is a National Park whereas Samburu and Buffalo Springs are reserves, administered by the local county council largely as money-spinners. The efficiency of the administration at Meru was impressive and constrasted markedly with the casual approach and rather run-down headquarters at Samburu.At Meru, one can see five white rhino which are the survivors of an attempt to introduce this rare species here. Some years ago, 11 of these great inoffensive beasts were released into the park, but poaching and fights between males accounted for six of them. The five that remain are now guarded day and night by armed rangers. „ The more “common ’

black rhino in the park are scarcely better off . The day after we arrived, there was much aircraft activity, and the next morning seven LandRovers packed with armed police and anti-poaching personnel in camouflage uniforms swept past the campsite at high speed. The droning of light planes again continued well into the dusk. We had arrived to see the start of a search mounted for a gang _ of poachers who had just killed six of the park’s 20 or so remaining black rhino.

Kenya has stepped up its efforts to combat this type of crime and now has an efficient antipoaching force, units of which are moved to problem areas. But the odds always favour the fugitives. Back in Nairobi, we planned a trip to Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf). This to me has always been one of those magical, almost mythical destinations. A new road from Kitale, built with

Norwegian aid, has made this remote lake accessible to saloon cars, but we teamed up with friends to take two vehicles — with an extra 60 litres each of petrol and water, a shovel, towrope, two spare wheels each, and a full toolkit.

Kitale was an easy 400 km from Nairobi, but the tarmac ended soon after that and the road wound over and down the Marich Pass, falling 1500 m to bring us once more into the northern deserts.' The road, hammered by overladen trucks heading for the Sudan, deteriorated until one’s brain shuddered in sympathy with the tormented car. (Unfortunately we no longer had the four-wheel drive). Rattles and squeaks started; a gasket fell out from the exhaust system; dust clogged the windows and door locks. The steering developed an alarming looseness and boulders clonked against the underside of the car. After some hours of this punishment we camped by a sand river and next day continued to the adminis-

trative centre of Lodwar, and branched off to the lake, through exhilarating expanses of orange .sand and scattered scrub. Near the lake, the sand had drifted over long stretches of the track, and while our friends’ fourwheel drive had no trouble, our car had to be dug out several times. Eventually we climbed a rise and there it was: the Jade Sea, surf breaking on palm-shaded beaches and the mountains on the opposite shore very blue in the distance under a brilliant desert sky. The hot, silent immensity of Turkana’s surroundings aquires additional significance with the knowledge that on the eastern shore, fossil remains of Homo habilis, dated at more than two million years old, have been found — the earliest unequivocally human remains discovered. Contemporary with these fossils are remains of australopithecus —- a genus of apemen believed to have become extinct about one million years ago. Thus our direct an-

cestors and their less adaptable, doomed relatives foraged along these shores at the dawn of human history. Perhaps they enjoyed a dip in the lake as much as we did. At Olorgesaille, another prehistoric site, the ground is littered with discarded hand “axes” — hundreds of them. The stone for their manufacture had to be brought from many miles away; this and the unnecessary elegance of the axes was impressive evidence of Stone Age man’s artistry and endeavour. Turkana is . one of many lakes scattered along the floor of the Great Rift Valley, from the Sea of Galilee down the Red Sea to the East African lakes, and eventually to Lake Malawi. After returning to civilisation to replace two shock absorbers and fix the exhaust, we headed for two more of these lakes: Baringo and Bogoria. Bogoria especially was beautiful, lying beneath the 1000 m high rift wall, with hot springs and geysers along its shores

indicating the continuing tectonic activity as Africa infinitesimally splits apart. The lake has a high soda content and the algae that thrive in the warm, mineral-rich water form the diet of flamingoes, sometimes present in vast numbers. We must have seen more than 100,000 of them, flock upon flock, forming a pink haze over much of the lake’s surface. Together with the geysers and dark escarpment they made a fantastic sight. . . Our final destination was Maasai Mara Reserve in the south-west of the country, adjoining Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains.. When we visited the reserve the annual migration had just brought many thousands of wildebeest and zebra across the border from Serengeti. Mara is a country of vast, rolling grassland, and on every slope, near and far, were black drifts of wildebeest. Such numbers were commonplace at the turn of the century, but Serengeti and Mara are the only places where such abundance can be

seen today. • We saw a variety of other wildlife, including numerous predators such as lion and hyena, attracted by the big herds; , kills' were numerous and the vultures found easy pickings. However, the mental picture many people have of a land-

scape full of savage beasts (not to mention deadly snakes and scorpions) is a false one. The zebra and antelope in Mara, as elsewhere, live, a wary but largely tranquil existence. '• Our over-all impression of the effort being made in Kenya . to conserve wildlife was favourable.

(Less pleasing was the effect of tourism on the character of the local people.) Given the rising expectations of her growing population, Kenya, like her neighbours, will face an increasingly difficult task in trying to balance conservation with progress.