Now we’re passing Ngulia bandas where we will stay tonight.“Agy stop” says Veerle.“There seems to be something sitting in the grass”.Gently reversing back we see a ……. another leopard.No, this isn’t possible, we couldn’t be that lucky.But indeed it is and there it is, watching us, watching it.
We’re on a roll now and decide to visit the rhino sanctuary.Last time we didn’t manage to find rhino but the way things are going today, surely we will.We’ve been driving around for about an hour and a half and no sign at all.But there are a lot of buses over there.Great, they must have found a rhino.Where is it?Where’s the rhino?But that’s too small to be a rhino, let’s get a little closer.You will not believe this, they’ve only found another leopard.This must be a record. Dusk is setting in so we head back for camp.We’re in another bus queue.There are about 10 vans stopping along the side of the hill.What have they seen?Ok, I’m going to give you 3 guesses, it begins with an L and ends with a D and it isn’t a lizard. So that’s official, 16 July is national leopard day.
17th July
Did yesterday really happen, did we really see five leopards?Ok, I’ll stop going on about it and move on to today’s agenda.A flip side of yesterday really, from Tsavo West, back to Tsavo East.We’re on our way to Mzima Springs.When we were here in May the roads were impassable.We’ve heard that lions have been sighted around Roaring Rocks, along the way, so we’ll try to track them down.No sign of the lions but great views of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Here we are at Mzima Springs.These springs, in a volcanic area, send out around 225 million litres of water a day, 30 million litres of which supply Mombasa.The water originates from Kilimanjaro’s snow cap.As we arrive there is a lady cuddling a little cat.She comes over and shows us what she has.“Is it a serval”, I ask “No a leopard.”This cub must only be a few days or weeks old.It’s a bit strange but I don’t think any more of it.She continues to walk around the nature trail, past hippo and crocodile, cuddling the cub.
I hadn’t realised that Agy is actually fuming by this stage.Finally, as we get to the viewing point, he asks the lady whether she speaks English, no only Italian, so she asks her friend to translate.“Can you explain to me how you came to have this cub?” asks Agy.The man tells him that they saw a serval with the baby in its mouth and when they arrived the serval dropped the cub so they got out of the car and picked it up.Agy is lost for words.The more he thinks about it the more he is convinced that the cat was not a serval at all but the cub’s mother, disturbed by the bus and carrying her young, otherwise why would it still be alive?He asks the KWS ranger what will become of it and is told that it will go to an orphanage in Nairobi.The lady probably had the best of intentions but it seems to be a terrible interference with nature.
Mzima springs,tsavo west
mzima springs croc
Moving on, we leave Tsavo West, back onto the main road and then again into Tsavo East, just before the oil slick (yes, it’s still there).I think Bart sums up Kenya the best, it’s a wonderful country except for the roads.Talking of which, we’re on a road up to LugardsFalls but have to turn back because the track has disintegrated into a pile of rocks.We’re getting pretty hungry by this stage so decide to return to Mudanda Rock for a picnic.As we climb to the top there are elephant at the water hole below and a giraffe is just ambling into the distance, beautiful.We’re on our way back to camp and can once again see quite a few vans parked along the track.We’ve finally found our lions, around five of them enjoying a late-afternoon snooze.
elephants in the pool below mudanda rock,tsavo east
mudanda rock giraffe
back at mudanda rock,tsavo east
lions at the pipe road,tsavo east
Back to camp via Kanderi swamp, the light is beautiful and there must be around 70 elephant arriving, it’s so peaceful.
Before we turn in for the night, once again at Ndololo, we are treated to camp fire stories by Ben, the manager. It’s really interesting to hear how Tsavo East came into being, it was designated as a national park back in 1947 and the small tribe living here, I think called something like the Waliangulu, consisting of 5 families,who were named I believe the Galdessa,Ndololo,Aruba,Tarhi and Kanderi were relocated to another area.He also gives us a few facts about some of the animals like an elephant’s ear weighs 25 kg - that’s one big ear.
kanderi swamp,tsavo east
black backed jackal,tsavo east
18th July
Wakey, wakey.It’s 6.00 am and time to go back to the coast but we still have a few hours left to explore the park. Before we leave, Agy’s day is made as he’s been after a genuine Masai spear for some time.He’s managed to persuade one of the askari to part with his, whatever turns you on my darling. Right, let’s go back via LugardsFalls on the Galana river but this time choosing a decent route.This road has been regraded and we cover the distance in just over an hour, the last time we did this in May it took us three and a half hours, although I was driving.On the way we see oryx, a couple of jackals really close-by and a crocodile in a tributary among the doum palms. We arrive at crocodile point with a good view of Lugards falls.The scene is very different from the last time we were here when millions of litres of brown water came gushing over the rocks.This time the water is clear and there is much less of it.There are also more crocodile and even some hippo.
