The start of the diary I planned to keep ..

Day One

Not sure if one can really count this as day one as this was the day we spent on the road to get here. We left Carnelley’s at Lake Naivasha at about 10am and took the White Sisters road that runs along the side of the Kingangop to Thinka where we stopped for supplies before heading to Mwingi on a pretty amazing road.

In Mwingi we picked up huge amounts of fruit and veg and in the gathering dusk we reached Kuyso where we stopped for a nice milky cup of tea that was much needed.

From Kyuso to Kampi ya Simba (Jamie’s base camp in Kora) was another 4 hours in the dark. By the time we reached camp it was 11pm. Zachary and  (his camp staff) has made us ugali and goat meat and chai ya kinyeji which was more than welcome.

Then began the hunt for the keys that would let us into Jamie’s room! Finally Jim fount them and by half midnight we were tucked up in bed and sleeping soundly.

Day Two

A nice lie in was much appreciated before I got up to have a look around camp. July/August are generally the coldest months and true to form the wind was gusty and the sky covered in clouds which made for a lovely day in this semi-desert area of Kora.

Camp is all fenced in for eventually lions will be prowling the bush. Kampi ya Simba was George Adamson’s base camp in the fight against poachers and livestock grazers who use the park where and when they can. All animals have been poached at some point or another and many no longer live in the vast wilderness that is Kora National Park. Now the big targets are elephant, as ivory is worth huge dollars on the international market. Rhino, eland, grevey and burchells zebra, leopard, lion, tana red colobus, skyes monkeys (almost), hirola and others are no longer found here. Giraffe, buffalo, lesser kudu, desert warthog and impala are only found in single numbers now.  A few years ago, over two years without rain meant that even the hardier species like dik-dik, bush-buck and reed-buck were badly hammered.

Now KWS and the George Adamson Wildlife Fund, along with many other kind donors have come together to try to build Kora back into the park wilderness it should be. There are plans to fence the entire area so as species can be reintroduced and populations nurtured back to health.

Population growth has meant that park boundaries all over the world are being encroached upon and Kora is no exception. Often communities here have hundreds of head of livestock and the old ways that meant resources were used wisely have disappeared. Overgrazing, land mismanagement and pure greed (livestock ownership is a sign of wealth) have meant that come the dry season each year grazing is almost impossible to find and communities bring their livestock to graze in the park.

But technology, with most people having access to mobile phones, mean that poachers can recruit ready volunteers in the hunt for ivory and bush-meat. Often the ivory from one elephant equates to ten years of earnings for the guy on the ground and he sees no reason why we should conserve. He earns nothing from tourism, there is no real need for his children to see elephant as his dream is to move to the city and often to achieve material wealth.

But poaching is so absolutely massive now and so threatening of the heritage of Africa that the fight back must be strong. And Kora is the front line in that fight.