For the next three days, the pattern of the day is repeated with morning and evening visits to the stockades and a daily trip to the mud-bath at the waterhole. The rest of our time is augmented by long game drives exploring the epic emptiness of this part of Tsavo. Tsavo National Park is really two separate parks, Tsavo West and Tsavo East – one on either side of the main road between Mombasa and Nairobi. We are in the least visited part of Tsavo East – the area north of Lugard Falls and the arc of the Yatta Plateau. The plateau is one of the world’s largest lava flows and forms a high hard-rock ridge that divides the park into a northern and southern section. The Galana / Athi River flows south-east down the west side of the plateau and then more easterly towards the coast.

Tsavo east is huge by my standards, almost 14,000 square kilometres. I live on an island that is less than 600 sq. km. and these distances and vast expanses of emptiness seem really strange to me. The northern section in which we find ourselves is probably about 6000 sq. km. – ten times the size of home and we are three among perhaps fifty people in the area. During our daily excursions, we see only the occasional Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) patrol, but no other visitors.

There are reasons for the quietness. If we’re being honest, then most of the time, this part of the park is fairly empty from a wildlife point of view. We are here in December and the rains have turned the whole country around us into fairly dense green bush. There is wildlife here and we do get tantalizing glimpses of dik-dik, elephants, kudu and even a couple of lion prints, but the animals are shy and move quickly out of sight if they are seen at all.

For me this is somewhat disappointing, but the elephants more than make up for the lack of other mammals. The mammals are here in numbers, but more so in the southern part of Tsavo East, which sadly we don’t have time on this short trip to drive to see.

We did manage to spend some time exploring the Tiva River. It’s not much of a river for most of the year, little more than a trickle when we visited. We were even allowed to walk a short distance along the bank – I spent most of the time looking over my shoulder for buffalo and lions – a first walk in the wild forests was something I wasn’t at that time prepared for. We sit down on a large fallen tree-trunk and wait for the birds to show themselves. We’re rewarded with the appearance of a green-backed night-heron on the far bank downstream and quite a few cattle egrets.

Sitting quietly and intent on the activity downstream, I’m very quietly asked to turn to my left. On the opposite bank, just ten metres or so away from us, a warthog as come down to the river to drink. He ignores our presence totally, takes a drink and then walks off along the bank, tail waving like a tiny flag. Just 50 metres or so further downstream, a group of three old bull buffalo come down the same far bank and, after stopping to turn and look in our direction, proceed to find a convenient mud-hole and start to wallow. We watch for a few minutes then move slowly back to the car.

On our last full day, there are a few additional visitors. A group of local community leaders from the villages around the edge of the park have been brought in to meet the orphans and learn a little about the work the Sheldrick Trust do to take care of the orphans and the wider environment. The usual mud bath session is moved to a slightly different waterhole a few hundred metres away from their usual location and we gather there to see the orphans – during a very hot day – get much more playful in the water. They spend a lot of time splashing, snorkelling and playing boisterously while I take photos and the local visitors look and learn.

A quick count shows one more elephant than there should be, indicating that a young wild bull – just a couple of years older than the orphans and not much bigger – has wandered into the waterhole to join in the fun. This is a fundamental part of the rehabilitation process. The orphans need to learn to socialize and interact with the wild elephant population if they are going to live a wild life in the future. It seems to work very well. There are many orphans living away from the stockade – a process that happens at the pace of each individual – and, although many of them stay together over time, particularly the females, they do integrate into the wider population and co-exist normally.

 

Our time was quickly over – just five nights before we had to head back to Nairobi. Fred and Elizabeth would have one night in Nairobi before heading off to Uganda for Christmas and New Year. I had a couple of extra days in Nairobi, not sure what to do with myself, but ready to spend some time relaxing and maybe take a trip out to the National Park for a bit of a game safari. In the end, I spent the three days in the hotel. I had an hour by the pool and, between sessions in the water, ended up dozing off for a few minutes in the sun. I ended up with pretty severe sunburn, mostly on my shoulders, neck and face. I was pretty uncomfortable and didn’t feel like doing anything for the last day and a half.

Still, I made it home safely and was soon processing my photos and working on my first photo-book of my adventure. Above all, I was hooked! Fred had said that Africa would get into your soul and he was absolutely right. I settled down to see what would happen, but hoped to one day return to the dark continent and seek out more wildlife wonders.