Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Graham to Grandma & Grandad 2 Jan 1977 –

We went away for Christmas and the children had their stockings hung up in the van because we were camping at Tsavo National Park. We had a lot of sunny weather and saw plenty of interesting animals. In the mornings and evenings we travelled around but in the middle of the day we sunbathed and read our books. Two or three days after 25th December we went to a hotel in the park and had a super Christmas dinner. They were using up surplus turkey, chicken, xmas pudding, mince pies and apple pie. Judy managed to produce nice meals under difficult conditions but after a week of camp cooking it was a real treat. Also it was in a beautiful place – the hotel is on the escarpment of some beautiful green and rocky hills, looking down on a vast plain one side, perhaps a thousand feet below us and on the other side a valley with rocky peaks beyond. Because of recent rain there was fresh green grass and bushes everywhere. Judy baked bread for us this holiday and it was delicious. We put a big square oil tin in the fire as an oven. One day the fire was too hot and the bread caught fire ! It tasted good after a bit of scraping.

Letter from Graham to Sue & Gravel 2 Jan 1977 –

On Christmas Day we were at a campsite where the water pump was broken down so we had to get water from an almost stagnant river. It was rather cloudy water and contained many tadpoles. That proved it was not poisonous but we didn’t want to drink it. Luckily we had a couple of gallons of clean water with us. There was plenty of life at that site: herds of gazelles and troops of vervet monkeys and baboons came to watch us. That made it easier for us to watch them which is what we were there for.

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 6 Jan 1977 –

Tsavo is over 8000 sq miles and it was rare to see another car. I had assumed that official Park campsites would have a fence around them but I was wrong ! We had a lovely holiday only marred by the great number of mosquitoes and other insects which meant we had to burn mosquito coils every night. In spite of this we all got bitten. They have had a lot of rain there which accounts for the insects but it made the surrounding countryside beautifully green and lush. We spent the first three nights at a campsite near the Chyulu Hills and during that time visited a volcanic crater nearby which is not much more than 100 years old. We walked or scrambled up to the summit finding the loose cinders hard going – the first part of the path was through forest and there was a large notice warning us to “Proceed quietly and cautiously because of the proximity of dangerous wild animals”. I’ve rarely known the children so subdued but we didn’t see anything, though there was lots of rhino and elephant dung. We also visited the Tsavo River area and spent a long time crouching behind clumps of reeds on the bank while Graham endeavoured to film the hippos. He is doubtful about his success but we have sent the resulting film on to you so you will be able to judge – we were sorry not to be carrying a portable tape-recorder too as the sound effects hippos produce are superb – in fact that’s the easiest way to track them down – they seem to spend a lot of time conversing in deep sonorous grunts interspersed with loud exhalations as they surface.

Later in the evening we saw several hippo out on the grass grazing which seemed highly incongruous. Another lucky find was a pack of wild dogs as these are very rarely seen. In fact they found us rather than the other way around while we were having a breakfast stop while out game viewing and obviously felt we were intruding as they approached quite close and barked at us. They are reputed to be very dangerous though I’m sure they wouldn’t attack a group of people. They stayed around for quite a while and only went when Graham and Juliet tried to approach them more closely. They don’t look at all like wolves as they have big ears and are marked in black and white with a fluffy white tail.

We moved on to a site in the furthest part of the Park and then moved over to Tsavo East Park and had a couple of days there at Lugard’s Falls on another big river. Near the end of our stay we treated the children to lunch at Ngulia Lodge where they have an excellent serve yourself cold buffet which meant the children (and us) could be exceedingly greedy. I took a tin oven this time so we were able to have freshly baked bread each day which we all enjoyed. In the heat I found the bread ‘rose’ beautifully and very quickly. We hadn’t realised it was very hot until we visited one of the lodges and saw a thermometer sat in a windy shadowed passage which we thought was decidedly chilly and found it registering 84°F – I hate to think what it was in the sun at the campsite. Fortunately, having been out in the sun so much we have all developed deep tans which are an excellent protection.

Letter from Juliet to Grandma & Grandad 2 Jan 1977 –

We went to Tsavo on the 21st December and returned on the 29th. Tsavo Game Park is the largest game park in East Africa except maybe for Serengeti in Tanzania. It is split into two parks – Tsavo East and Tsavo West. The park is 150 miles south from Nairobi and the main gates are on the Nairobi – Mombasa road. The gate we entered was in a village called Mtito Andei. The strangest thing about this village was that there were five separate petrol stations and each one seemed to be prospering. As we left Nairobi I noticed that the grass was incredibly long, lush and green, but I still saw dead cattle – cattle that had died in the drought before the rain came. About 15 miles from the centre of Nairobi is a sign saying ‘Kwaheri – Come Again’ (Kwaheri means goodbye) and on the other side ‘Welcome – City In The Sun’, but at that moment the sky was grey and cloudy and it was drizzling. We stopped at a favourite stopping place – Hunters Lodge and met Paula Allsopp, a teacher from Alliance. In a village further on we bought some bananas. They cost one shilling (5p) for six and were delicious so bought 2 dozen after tasting them. Almost as soon as we entered the park through the gate at Mtito Andei we saw animals. There were lots of fat, muddy zebras who were now black and brown. Normally you cannot tell whether a zebra is starving or not because it has millions of parasites in its stomach which makes it look fat. We also saw some lovely brown impalas – males showing off their graceful horns and the females and young with huge, beautiful eyes. In the distance we saw a group of red elephants lumbering around eating. They were red because of rolling and giving themselves dust baths. The campsite was better than most because it had thatch shelters under which you could pitch your tent. This gave shelter from the rain and shade from the sun. Next to these were smaller shelters under which were fire places with grids to cook on.

There were very nice shower blocks and outside were taps set on blocks which was a convenient height for washing up. Sometimes during the day we would get baboons that came and turned these taps on and then drank from them. Unfortunately they didn’t turn them off ! We didn’t go out looking for game until the next day. There were the usual zebra and impala and also some kongoni whose horns look like handlebars and they run in a lopsided manner. As well as these we saw a herd of oryx – their horns are twisted spirals and shoot straight up. When they are grazing they look incredibly like rhinocerous. We went to Poachers Lookout which was a small hut with a telescope on top of a hill. From here we could see the Chyulu range to the west, the Ngulia Hills to the east and to the south west Kilimanjaro. At the time Kilimanjaro only had a small amount of snow on. Kilimanjaro has two peaks – Kibo is the taller and has a flat-looking top, Mawenzi is older and more rugged. It is a volcanic mountain. We discovered that there were a lot of mosquitos so during the night we burned mosquito coils but during the day we got bitten all over and I still have a few itches left. One day we went game watching early and stopped for a breakfast of bread and strawberry jam on the crest of a hill from where we could see Kilimanjaro with its snow shining in the morning sun. While we were having our cereal we noticed a movement in the bushes across the road. It was a pack of hunting dogs. We were very lucky as it’s rare to see them. Daddy counted 21 altogether but we thought there were more. We left Chyulu Campsite on the 25th and went to Ziwani Camp about 5 miles from the bottom of Kilimanjaro. During the evening there was a continuous croaking of frogs but it didn’t keep me awake. In the afternoon a troop of baboons came and stayed in the trees until next morning. Tsavo was very green and a lot of the roads had been damaged by the rain but while we were there we only had a few showers of rain.

Diary entry by Juliet 21 Dec 1976 –

We set off from home at 8:30am and took two schoolboys. We stopped in Nairobi to do some shopping and get library books. Coming out of Nairobi on the Mombasa road is Machakos District. On the left hand side is Kamba land and on the right is Maasai. After stopping for a break at Hunters Lodge we dropped the boys off. I am going to sleep in the van and we are going to put our stockings up tonight and open our Christmas presents tomorrow.

Diary entry by Juliet 22 Dec 1976 –

This morning Helen and Fiona came to the van before it was properly light and claimed that they were told before they went to bed that they must not go before it was light! Naturally I wasn’t awake but that didn’t matter to them, they just woke me up ! But who could really blame them. There were two stockings (Daddy’s long rugby socks) between us and our packages were tied with different colour string to show whose was whose. Helen’s string was green, Fiona’s white and mine red. We had a lot of things and had a super time opening them. We had decided that after breakfast we would give Mummy and Daddy and each other our presents so as soon as we finished eating we gave them out. This note book is a present from Mum & Dad.

Diary entry by Juliet 23 Dec 1976 –

After our afternoon game drive we went to Kilimani Lodge for a drink . We sat on the verandah and had a Fanta. Just in front of the verandah were some waterholes where we saw a little warthog which looked very like Mac the dog at home. At the Lodge was an information centre which I went to look at. There were different stones though no mica which we had found where we had breakfast. There was a display of poachers traps and photos of how the poachers work. One photo showed a live elephant whose hind leg was completely raw because a poacher had shot an arrow covered in acid at the elephant. The display showed a bone of a rhino’s leg that had grown around the wire of a snare. We told a Ranger about the 21 hunting dogs we’d seen and he wrote it down and put it as Fedha Hill which means Silver Hill in Swahili. He told us that the valley is called Rhino Valley. This evening we went to a place called Shetani, a smallish volcano. The word ‘shetani’ is Swahili for devil. While we were going up the path to the top we saw two antelope that were quite small and quite furry and a very pale sandy colour. There were some small lava ash lumps used as gravel on the path – they were black but had rainbow colours in so I collected some. On the next part of the path we had to climb over large pieces of lava which was quite hard. It took us quite a long time to get to the top but because it was evening we didn’t get hot. From the top we could see three craters all of which had exploded at different times. We could also see the lava flow and it looked as if it had only recently flowed because right up to the edge of the lava was forest which gave the effect that the lava had flowed over the forest. It was much harder coming down as it was very steep and like a scree slope.

Diary entry by Juliet 24 Dec 1976 –

This morning we went down to the Tsavo River again to try to see hippo but we didn’t see any although we could hear them further up-river. Mummy saw a crocodile that was about 6ft long but we didn’t. On the way back to camp for lunch, just as we were going over a hill, Daddy suddenly stopped the van, got out and walked back. He picked up something and walked back with it. All of a sudden I knew what it was; it was a tortoise! He measured about 3cms across his shell and 4cms in length. Because he was wild he was not frightened of us. Daddy said he was just about to cross the road through a puddle when Daddy had driven over him. Luckily the wheel had not hit him. We put him back by the puddle and he swam across and then walked away incredibly fast so Daddy took a cine of him. We put him back by the puddle and filmed him swimming across. For lunch we had a new kind of nut called macadamia. We also started Mummy’s huge fruit cake that has molasses and candied peel in it. We went back to camp via Kitani Safari Lodge to see if you could get petrol or drinks but we could get neither because there were just some bandas. There was a gorgeous sunset with lovely soft and startling pinks and firey oranges. A cloud had come down over Ngulia Hills and made it look like a Christmas pudding with icing on it because the cloud was smooth on top and sloped down as the hill sloped down.

Stills from our ciné film: Helen and Juliet watching the little tortoise.

Diary entry by Juliet 25 Dec 1976 –

Today I keep thinking about our cousins and friends opening their Christmas presents. This morning we got up quite late and went to Mzima Springs. We parked in some shade and walked along a nature trail. One notice said “To feed monkeys is a mistaken kindness” which is very true because the more they are fed the more they expect to be fed so when they are not fed they get angry and bite. The path led down to the place where the water emerges. Here it had a notice telling about Mzima Springs which gives out 50 million gallons of water a day. As we walked along there were notices about the trees. We saw lots of hippos wallowing and grunting. The water was surprisingly clear and we could see lots of fish. We went into a ‘tank’ which is a hut that goes under water so that you can see the fish and maybe hippo or crocodiles. We only saw fish.

We drove back to camp via Kilaguni Lodge to get a drink and some petrol. Just outside the Lodge door were two ground squirrels which had obviously been fed because they were quite tame. There was also a rock hyrax. From the Lodge verandah we saw a family of warthogs. There was a mother, a father and three piglets which Helen insists are called ‘hoglets’. They were very funny and ran all over the place. After we got back we decided to move to Ziwani Camp. On the way we had to go on several diversions because the rain had washed the roads away. When we got there we went to the Ranger Post nearby and were told that the water pump was broken so we had to get water from the Rangers. For toilets we use ‘long-drop’ toilets that are just pits with a box with a hole over the top. While Helen was helping put the tent up a small frog with red feet jumped into her hands. There are a lot of fireflies flying about. I wonder if you put a lot in a jar whether they would give enough light to write by? Fiona is sleeping with me in the van tonight.

Diary entry by Juliet 26 Dec 1976 –

This morning when I woke up I heard a tap, tap, tap from above so I looked up and saw little bird feet tapping over the fibreglass bit on the van roof ! After lunch we left Ziwani for Tsavo East which is counted as another park. On the way we stopped at Taita Lodge near the Taita Hills. There we met some men whom we had given a lift to on the way to Tsavo West. Next we stopped at Voi and had drinks, samosas and doughnuts. We passed an old mining ghost town – it looked horrible and really spooky. We put up our blue tent near Voi Gate. It’s quite a nice campsite and there are also bandas.

Diary entry by Juliet 27 Dec 1976 –

This morning we found a small dung beetle making a ball with the dung of a small deer, possibly dik-dik as we have seen a lot of footprints of them. The dung beetle makes a ball larger than himself by pushing together the small pellets of dung using his flat head. He then rolls the ball away and jams it into a safe place. This ball is used for the female to place her eggs in which then hatch on their own. The babies then live on the contents of the dung until they are able to fend for themselves. At the campsite there are two enormous elephant skulls. I tried to dislodge a tooth but they are too firmly embedded in. I also discovered that the entire skull is very light because it’s full of holes. Before lunch Daddy decided to go and ask how much it cost to stay in one of the bandas. It cost the same as camping so we decided to have one and moved in before lunch. Catherine Stevenson had come here the week before us and told me that there wasn’t much game around which seemed true as we had seen no animals. Mummy said that the first person to spot an animal could have a sweet. Helen saw ‘it’ first. ‘It’ was a lovely, shy, silver-backed jackal running across the road. In fact we all got a sweet !

Diary entry by Juliet 28 Dec 1976 –

Early this morning we left Voi campsite as we decided to go to Mtito Andei and go home tomorrow. We drove first to Lugards Falls on the Galana River. We had some elevenses under some palms by the Galana. Helen saw a crocodile slip into the water. Daddy found the skull of a rhino with no other bones and said he thought that poachers had killed it for its horns and then thrown the head away. You are not allowed to take dead or alive animals out of the parks but we took a set of teeth. Just as we drove off we saw a herd of elephants but before we got near them they smelled us and ran off. Daddy thought this was because poachers hunted them. As we drove along we saw that the bottom branches of the trees were completely grazed off which gave them the effect of having been cut specially. On the way to Ngulia Lodge for lunch we saw more elephants in twenty minutes than we had all holiday. We had a lovely meal at Ngulia Lodge and then went to Kilaguni Lodge and had a drink. There we saw ostrich, gazelle and baboons. Mtito Andei campsite is near the Mombasa road so we can hear all the traffic. The van has been giving a bit of trouble.

Things found by Juliet.

Diary entry by Juliet 29 Dec 1976 –

We started off on our journey home quite early. The van kept going wrong so we stopped and Daddy found that the crankshaft was nearly broken so we had to stop a while whilst Daddy fixed it as best as he could. About half an hour later we stopped for lunch at a hill from where we could see Kilimanjaro poking up through the clouds. At about 9am we stopped at Hunters Lodge for a drink. Just as we sat down I noticed Jane Stevenson ! We hadn’t known they were here. Soon Alastair and Catherine came and we were chatting. They took us to their room while their Mum & Dad, Myrtle and Thomas, chatted to Mum & Dad. Tom suggested that Catherine and Alastair took us out in a rowing boat. For residents this is free but for us it would cost 10/- but Tom told Catherine and Alastair to row to the bank outside their room which was out of sight of the lodge and pick us up there. Catherine and Alastair rowed very well. We got out again by their room while they took the boat back. Under the jetty we saw a huge eel – it was about 4″ fat ! We also saw another tortoise. At Hunters Lodge we also met Marie and Eric Hjalmarrson who have just come to live in the Assarafs old house at Alliance. On the way from Hunters Lodge to our lunch stop we passed the Elsons going to Mombasa. We went into Nairobi to do some shopping before going home to Kikuyu. Helen and I had chocolate milkshake at the BluKat Cafe and at the Sussex Bakery on Banda St we bought a cake each for tea. I got a chocolate eclair.

Letter from Graham to David 7 Jan 1977 –

On camping holidays it’s difficult for me to shave with my electric shaver so now I have a beard again. I expect the schoolboys will be amused when they return.