Sunday 22nd January 2017

A bit of a lie in this morning as we were heading to Lewa Wilderness Conservancy at about 9 o’clock. Tamsin and I met with Gill for breakfast which, as usual, was an excellent affair. After which we climbed into the vehicle to be driven by Sammy with George and Teresa’s son, Chris. The reason that Chris was coming was that some provisions that were meant for Elsas Kopje had in fact been delivered to their sister camp in Lewa. Estimated journey time was 3.5-4.0 hours. Very quickly we established that Sammy was a much more considerate driver than George as he slowed for bumps and approached animals slowly. After about ½ an hour we passed through some gates and buildings that were the old boundary of the park, the boundary is another 2kms down the road. After some formalities we passed through the gate and into what looked like a village with crops growing either side of the road, shops and houses as well as loads of rubbish strewn everywhere. What is it about humans that we trash our surroundings???

After about 15 minutes on dirt roads we then joined some tarmac. To call it a road would be like calling driving the M25 in rush hour a pleasure. It was so bad that the best bits were where people had driven on the dirt to get around the pot holes! This lasted for about 30mins, (probably less than 5kms), before we found a good road surface. As we passed through towns and villages we started to climb. Now there were spaces between the towns that we passed through and we could see more of the countryside. We had passed through a major town, Lioli, which has a new International Airport we turned off onto a track and soon passed through the entrance to Lewa Wilderness Conservancy. This had taken almost 4 hours and I guesstimated was about 100kms in distance – or less!!? It’s actually 125kms.

Here we said goodbye to Sammy and Chris and hello to the manager Abi. There are 12 guest cottages here as well as the main family house. We’re in cottages 1 and 2 which have a shared lounge and balcony. We have access to the library and veranda of the main house and the owners, the Craig family, have the rest. There is an eating area that is under shade and has views across a small river towards some cliffs, a guest lounge with bar and a pool area that also has views of the cliffs.

We met up with the other guests over lunch and started to talk about what we might see here. The big five, antelope including Gerenuk, White and Black Rhino, Giraffe, two types of Zebra plus a lot of bird life. They also warned us that it does get cold in the evening and mornings. After another wonderful meal we retired to our rooms to read, relax before heading out for a game drive.

Our guide is Mungai who is a cheery chap and a very smooth and considerate driver which suited us perfectly. He started to explain what we might see and talked a little about the different parts to the conservancy. We slowly climbed up onto an overlook. From here Mungai spotted a pair of male Cheetahs in the distance. We climbed up to get closer to them and eventually parked next to them, they seemed pretty relaxed about us. Mungai said he thought they were tracking a young Zebra that was with 4 adults on the next hill. He was correct as, as soon as the Zebra went over the brow of the hill the Cheetah took off in that direction. We headed back down the slopes and along the bottom so that we could track the action. Sure enough the Cheetahs had made up a lot of ground on the Zebra, but the Zebra were still moving away. The Zebra crossed a river at which point the pursuing Cheetah changed tactic and headed at an oblique angle in anticipation that the Zebra steer in that direction, which they started to. However, a Gazelle spotted the Cheetah and raised the alarm so the Zebra then changed direction. All this was done in the gathering dusk which on the equator is short. We moved position to keep an eye on what was happening as Mungai informed us that Cheetah don’t hunt at night so stopped and had our sun-downers. The Cheetah appeared to have given up as we headed for camp in the failing light.

In our shared lounge they had lit a fire which was very welcome as were the Masai ponchos that we had used whilst out on the drive – they were not joking about it getting cold here. We then headed out for some pre-prandial drinks before dinner over which we chatted about what we had all seen that day – all very civilised.

Over a lovely dinner Abi, the manager, spotted a Genet Cat that sometimes visits. Mike, one of the guests placed a piece of fish on a surface close to it. After a bit of nervousness it came and ate – what a beautiful creature with an incredibly long tail.