Wednesday 22nd April 2008

Off to Lake Nakuru today. Unfortunately it’s another 5am wake up and 13 hour drive. But that is only travelling only 400kms! The roads are absolutely brutal! Spent the whole day being thrown around the back of the truck and trying to play cards and boggle. We decided to upgrade from our tents to a nice little cottage for the night. Good choice! Pete

Tuesday 22nd April 2008
Today we went for a 1 hour car trip and then went on another 1 hour boat trip to a island which had orphaned chimps. We got told we could touch them, but when we got there and they said NO! But I had a good time. One chimp could not go with the group because he would jump the fence. AMAZING. There was another chimp that could not go with the group because he is sooooo smart that one night he escaped and went to a fridge, got a fanta and opened it without breaking it and drank it. Today I learnt that Chimps aren’t monkeys, they’re apes. Monkeys have tails and chimps and gorillas don’t, but apes have opposing thumbs and monkeys don’t. Then it was time to say goodbye so we headed off to the jetty back to Kampala then onto Jinja where the Nile river starts. ElijahHi. Kaz here. Had a great day with the kids, was worried to start with that we had forgotten raincoats, ended up needing sunscreen. Relaxing ride home all feeling a bit tired, a few early mornings in a row has a tendency to do that to you. We crossed the invisible Equator line in the middle of the lake (Lake Victoria is the second largest fresh water lake in the world). Sat in the sun and Pete and I prayed for Will on the way home. Sitting now at the mouth of the Nile drinking Vodka and Lemonade doing home work with the kids - Yuk... I still HATE homework! Nothing’s changed. (PS We’ve crossed the equator twice in 2 days). Kaz..xxx

Sunday & Monday 20th & 21st April 2008

Heading back to Kampala means another 14 hours on the road but fortunately they break it up this time with an overnight stay at Lake Bunyoni, a beautiful, serene, mountainous, hillious, picturesque-ious, bittious of waterous. How’s the serenity?! Then we were back on the road at 6.30. Tonight we dine with our old friends Matt & Tanya (that we met 3 weeks ago at Watoto for new readers).


Saturday 19th April 2008
I am currently writing this with my nose as I am numb from the neck down...The alarm was set for five so after a quick cuppa it was off to the jungle to track gorillas.It would have to be the most fatiguing walk ive ever done .The trackers led the way with maqshettes and it was onward and upward you couldn’t even use a walking stick.The real excruciating journey was the trail home they decided to take us home via the mountain.. the short cut... which involved a steeper than 45 degree assent through dense virgin jungle. Ok Now the story. Sitting only metres away from a great chunky silver back was nothing short of wonderful. We actually had to all move out of the way at one stage as the gorilla eyed off some juicy plants right behind us. They were amazingly docile and seemed quite unperturbed at our presence. It was a great photo shoot. Only 8 people can go in at a time and you can sit with them for 1 hour. It is unthinkable that their body parts could be used as ash trays and coffee tables. What is even more amazing than the existence of poachers is that there is even a market. Tonight is sure to be the best sleep I’ll have had in a long time.. love to you all kaz.. and Karen for my mum and DIL for munkas....
Ps. Just to let you know we went home a different way to Pete and my way was a lot harder.....

Friday 18th April 2008
After a 1½ hour drive in the dodgiest van on the dodgiest roads we got to the Bwindi National Park, in the SW corner of Uganda, right near the border of Rwanda & the DRC. We met our guides Caleb & Silver and headed off to find the gorillas. They send trackers ahead to their last known location and track them from there so we were guaranteed of a close encounter. We arrived at the spot where the gorillas were feeding after 1½ hours of trekking through pretty tough terrain, down into a valley and got very excited at the first gorilla we saw. It was about 25 metres away up a steep mountain, but that was completely overshadowed when 2 minutes later we were face to face with a beautiful male gorilla sitting amongst some bushes eating leaves. I was literally only 3 metres from him and he was totally at ease with our presence to the point where the guides were hacking away at the branches next to his head so that we could get a better view. The reason they are so calm is that this family of gorillas is one of 4 that have been “habituated”. There are 32 families in these mountains, this one has 18 members, most have about 10, and when the Wildlife Authority decide to habituate one (mainly because they aren’t too deep into the jungle for us westerners to trek to), the highly trained trackers start visiting them and getting them used to human contact. They make gorilla sounds, pretend they’re eating gorilla food and basically just sit around them for months until they are convinced the gorillas are cool with people. They say the gorillas know that our presence is connected with their protection (the $500 it costs to get a permit pays for rangers who guard against poachers and also pays the local farmers so they don’t harm the gorillas when their crops are raided by the big guys from time to time). Anyhoo, we scrambled around the steep mountainous bush through prickly bracken and slippery undergrowth for the next 1½ hours coming within 2 metres of the silverback and others, our only no-no being the use of flash photography. We all spoke in hushed tones but I’m sure that was unnecessary. I think if you did sneak up quietly on one they would be startled and break you in half so it’s better to let your presence be known. It just felt bizarre that we were stumbling through the bush straight towards one of them with the poise and subtlety of Inspector Cleuseau, then we’d all gather around him, quite literally 2 metres away (I’m not exaggerating) and stare at him, and it didn’t bother him one bit. When he’d had enough of that particular plant to eat or when he’d had enough of us, he just got up and walked away and we’d scramble off to the next rustling tree to stare at another one. A truly surreal experience which, incidentally, the trek back was too. All up hill, hard work, but worth it! Pete.

Over to Elijah to tell you about the pigmy village they visited.Today we went to the pigmy village and we saw a really happy and energetic guy who was 86 years old dancing around, jumping and taking us to his village. They believe if they tell their real age they will get in trouble by their gods so the guide said he might be even older. They took us into their huts and it was really squishy and small. They also danced for us which was really good and funny. When they took us to our car they asked if we could dance around with them before we left so we did. I really enjoyed it. Elijah

Tuesday 15th – Thursday 17th April 2008

We left Masi Mara around 7am bound for a tea plantation in Kericho. It only took 8½ hours. The moment we jumped out of the truck ready to put our tents up for the first time the skies opened up and it absolutely bucketed down for an hour This area has been affected badly by the recent political violence and many people have been made homeless after having their homes burned to the ground so when a very sad looking local man approached our group with his little carved chess set saying “please buy this. I give you best price. I have no food and 3 children and no business today.” I had no choice. I now have a very nice stone chess set and a tear in the eye. We eventually got our tents up and hit the sack for a 5am start in the morning. Another all-dayer, this time back to Kampala in Uganda and yes, another 5am start on Thursday to get to the western side of Uganda where the gorillas are. The kids played cards most of the way which made the time fly. We arrived after a 14 hour drive in a little town called Kisoro completely wasted but fortunately we were able to upgrade out of our tents and into a room for free! I will be off to see the gorillas in the morning while Kaz looks after the kids and then she will go see the great apes the next day. As for me it’s another 5am start! Yawn. Pete

Elijah at the tea plantation

Monday 14th April 2008
Today was a early start waking up at six o’clock. Another game drive but this time with a bigger group and van. We saw: 11 lions, heaps of zebra’s, Thompson’s Gazelles, topis (deer), wilder beast, cranes, water bucks (deer), ostriches, impala (deer), monkeys, warthogs, hippos, crocs, lizards, elephant and a serval cat.WOW. Mum was chased by two monkeys, you can just imagine what the rest the family were doing. Dad was taking photos and us kids were laughing. What else could we do??? MahaliaJ

Sunday 13th April 2008
We walked to church this morning for ½hour through lion & hyena infested bush. It was worth it. I videoed some of the worship because their singing is awesome. The keyboard player, however, was totally feral and played a different tune in a different key for every song. I think we were the only ones who noticed. The service went for about 2½ hours and pastor Samuel invited me to share greetings from Broome. The rest of our Safariers arrived around 6.30pm. Pete.

Saturday 12th April 2008

Veg day. Lots of good ‘ol Maths. The kids are getting very good at it! Elijah learned to shoot a Masi bow & arrow and throw a spear. He is totally hooked and wants to be a Masi. Pete

Friday 11th April 2008
Zebras – Black with white strips or white with black strips? Chomping on grass for breakfast we saw zebras with impalas in the morning of our game drive. Elijah’s favourite animals are zebras, he was stoked. Very cool...

Wildebeests – Big leathery looking things aren’t they? Sitting there in the sun not scared of the car at all. ‘Awwww can I have one as a pet?’
Jackal – Little cutie! Took a photo then he ran off!
Lionesses - All breath-taken by the fact that yet again they were only meters away from the car, in the wild, and we had only been driving for 10 minutes. There was also impalas nearby that we THOUGHT were soon going to be breakfast when we saw the lionesses one by one wake up, have a yawn and walked in a line towards the poor ‘on-the-menu’ impalas. Our guide just giggled and said that lions always hunt with strategy and these ones were clearly not interested in our impala friend. All laughing at ourselves thinking we were ‘lion experts’, just watched amazingly not wanting to blink and eye.

Giraffes –Mahalia’s favourite animal was spotted in the distance by Dad, eating leaves. Very gorgeous, no two patterns are the same!

Baboons – Crawling across the road we saw a family of baboons, the little ones were sooooooooooo cute!
Hippos – They’re HUGE... We hopped out of the car and walked to a close murky river, there were about 40 hippos, all making weird noises! We also spotted a baby croc swimming nearby, but don’t worry it certainly didn’t bother the hippos because our guide said crocs know who’s boss! The hippos were so close to us!!! WOW, what’s next?


Ostriches – You know. They’re the second fastest animal in the world, next to Mum being chased by a lion! He he. They were all lined up dancing around to celebrate the rain that was softly spitting down. The grey-feathered females sit on their eggs during the day, while the black males who absorb the heat sit on the eggs during the night to keep the egg warm.

Giraffes – We saw a Dad and Mum with their baby, this time they were closer to us than the last giraffe. Did you know, Male giraffes and female giraffes both have two small horns, but the males have hair on the top and the females don’t.

Elephants – To finish a perfect day of animal spotting we saw a herd of wild elephants, again just meters from the car with their big tusks. It was an absolutely amazing day full of wild animals. I loved it! Maddi.
Before heading back to camp we went to a Masi village for a tour. They showed dad how to make fire with a stick and showed us inside one of their mud huts. Apparently when a Masi boy turns 15 he is circumcised and then sent out into the bush with about 15 of his mates for 3-5 years! No adults, no help. Just a spear and the clothes on their back (and a sore willie). They return after the aforementioned 3-5 years after they have KILLED A LION and celebrate their entry into manhood with a big feast and a much needed hair cut. They also marry when they come back. Quite an incentive to kill a lion heh? Next the women sang a welcoming song before showing us there local bead work and other decorative stuff. I discovered that the authentic elephant hair bracelet I bought yesterday was made of grass and the words of my 9 year old son echoed in my ears, “Dad, I can’t believe you really think that’s elephant hair!” Needless to say I bought the real thing this time, cut from the tail of an elephant by a real Masi and then went the whole hog by buying a genuine lion’s tooth and claw and a cheetah’s tooth all 3 of which were taken from animals that were killed personally by the Masi guys selling them to me. The night was capped off with a traditional Masi dance around the camp fire complete with the classic Masi jumping. Pete



Thursday 10th April 2008
We met Steve and Kelly from Lismore area our tour buddies! Drove to Masi-Mara, an area of Kenya approximately 1500sqkms to the acacia camp site near a genuine Masi village, where we will stay for the next three days, before we join the safari. Off at 9:30am and arrived at 5pm. On the way we stopped off at a curio shop as we looked out over the Great Rift Valley. Dad bought an authentic elephant hair bracelet. The Curio shop overlooking the Great Rift Valley
Before we even got to our camp site we saw...> zebra, impala, wildebeest, jackal, vultures, hyena, giraffe and for the grand finale four male lions crossing the road just meters in front if the car!!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing, in the wild right there! Settled in at camp with two Masi guards outside the tents to ward off any hyenas, needless to say mum said her bladder control will be exceptionally good tonight. Maddi