Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 19 April 1975 –

We drove down to Tsavo, one of the largest Game Parks in the world, on the Nairobi – Mombasa road starting out quite early so it wouldn’t be too hot. The road was all tarmac. At first, coming out of Nairobi we saw quite a lot of buildings and the airport, then it became more barren, just brown and yellow grass and some thorn bushes with a few people walking by the road. Then as we drew near half way we stopped for a break on top of a hill and from it we could see Mt Kilimanjaro looming out from above the cloud, King of Africa; it looked really magnificent up there covered with snow. From then on, as we drove, we could see it above the clouds. We have some friends who have climbed Kilimanjaro. As we drove on we started to see more trees and we saw lots of baobabs (or is it boababs ? I never can remember!). We also saw lots of herds of cows and goats being taken to waterholes. When we got to the park we had to stop at the gate while Daddy paid and sorted everything. The park looked like outside and after we had driven on for a while we saw a dead elephant by the road.

Diary entry by Juliet 13 April 1975 –

Today at 8am we set off to drive to Tsavo West National Park. Caroline & Martin Trent came with us. It took about 4 hours. We are staying in two ‘bandas’ which are small holiday houses. We saw lots of things on the way. We arrived about 4:30pm because we stopped at some lodges for a drink. The bandas are on a hillside overlooking a waterhole. They are very nice. We have got numbers 4 and 5 next to each other. At the waterhole tonight we saw some deer and a herd of elephants with a very young one.

The bandas are quite modern but the roof is only thatch so at night it’s awfully draughty from the wind off the hill. There is no electricity so we use two storm lanterns.

Stills from our ciné film of Juliet, Fiona & Helen taken outside our banda.

Diary entry by Juliet 14 April 1975 –

This morning we drove to Mzima Springs (in the Park). On the way we saw lots of deer including two dik-dik, a herd of buffalo, a few zebra, a sleeping rhino, ostriches and hyraxes and about 3 herds of elephant. One of the herds of elephants was near the road and Daddy wanted to take a cine film of them. It was a herd of about 4 old mothers, 2 oldish children and one very young one. As they walked we followed them and then when we had finished we drove off fast. One of the big old elephants obviously didn’t like this, especially with her young one and shook her head and charged at us so we quickly drove off.

Stills from our ciné film. Main pic – elephant. Judy and Helen watching game from the minibus.

When we got to Mzima Springs we went into a glass tank underwater and saw the fish swimming about. The water just pours out of the ground and is supposed to supply Mombasa. While we were walking to the tank we met some monkeys. One very cheeky one climbed up to our bag of food so Daddy zipped it up but the monkey still got in by poking his hand in a place where the bag was broken so Daddy put the bag and the monkey on a rock and filmed it with the cine camera taking a plastic bag out.

Stills from our ciné film. Bottom right: Helen watching game from the minibus.

Then we went to Kilaguni Safari Lodge for a drink and went back to the bandas for dinner. After dinner we went to Ngulia Safari Lodge to have a drink and look around. We saw two elephants at the waterhole outside.

Diary entry by Juliet 15 April 1975 –

This morning we drove around the park and saw lots of animals again. In one small area we saw over 100 elephants in a very green place near a waterhole. We stopped for elevenses near a waterhole and saw a rhino chasing a warthog. Later on we saw another rhino very close to the road. It charged at us so we drove away quickly until he stopped. Rhinos can go really fast and can damage your car very badly. In some places it was raining and you could see it streaking down from the clouds. We saw some strange looking hartebeeste and there were some marabou storks perched up on trees. They look really funny – big, scruffy, ungainly birds. Then we drove to Ngulia Lodge and had a lovely dinner. When we got back to our banda we found two loaves of bread and two teacakes had been nibbled at. (We later found out that there were three little squirrels living outside and they had climbed up the wall and over the top into the kitchen)

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 18 April 1975 –

Our holiday was a great success, starting off with a beautifully clear day. We could see Kilimanjaro on the road as we left Alliance and had it in view most of the way down to Tsavo where it is considerably nearer of course. It was the first time I’d seen it in spite of having travelled that road several times a week and it was a most awe-inspiring and fascinating sight. No wonder local tribes worship it and Mount Kenya. It had a lot of snow on it and seemed immensely high in spite of being 100 miles away. I doubt if the most cynical person could ever become blasé about that sight especially as it is relatively seldom seen.

Tsavo was more interesting than I expected – by no means all flat plains. There were many interesting ranges of hills and our bandas were part way up one with a magnificent view over a waterhole and the surrounding country. I hadn’t quite realised the smallness of the human involvement in places like Tsavo – there were only 6 bandas on our site and there are only 4 other sites in the whole of the park – we are 40 miles from the gate and almost as much from the nearest lodge.

Stills from our ciné film showing elephants coming to drink at the water hole below our banda and the view.

One certainly is on one’s own while driving around, some days we didn’t see another car. There were, though, plenty of animals. It is quite an enlivening experience to be driving through a herd of 50 or so elephant, especially with the added spice that they cannot be trusted to recognise us as merely friendly if curious onlookers. The screams issuing from all 5 females in the minibus when one elephant decided to charge us were, according to Martin who was driving, enough to waken the dead ! Actually we had to drive behind the group who were walking along very close to the road. After travelling at elephant pace for some time we decided the only thing to do was drive firmly past. As the elephants had young they were more aggressive than usual so we chose a bit of road where we could accelerate if necessary and hurried past. An elephant seems very large when charging downhill at you, trunk raised and ears flying ! We had plenty of opportunity to see them in calmer circumstances – one evening we counted 40 odd come to our waterhole to drink in groups of 6 or 8, usually with one or two babies. Most of the elephants were a bright rust-red not grey at all because they cover themselves with mud and dust to protect themselves from insects I suppose – it made them very easily visible in the bush. We saw many other animals – rhino, buffalo, giraffe, zebra and lots of different deer but no leopards which we were hoping to see as there are many around. They are mostly nocturnal so not easy to see.

We visited a very interesting ash cone, crater and lava flow which is only a few hundred years old though no longer active, and Mzima Springs where millions of gallons of water pour out in the middle of a very arid lava valley. Hippo breed in the pools and they have built an underwater viewing tank so that one can see them underwater quite safely.

Stills from our ciné film. Clockwise from bottom left: the cinder dome, Caroline & Helen, Judy, Helen, Judy & Fiona, Juliet clambering around on the lava, Judy & Juliet, Judy, Juliet.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 19 April 1975 –

We drove the same road home again but it was just as interesting although this time we couldn’t see Kilimanjaro because it was cloudy. When we were near Nairobi we ran straight into a storm. The rain really lashed down and every car, van and lorry had it’s headlights on. You couldn’t see very far ahead so we had to go very slowly. I love listening to rain and we didn’t mind the storm. When we got home to Kikuyu it was still raining.