I have been to Tsavo but it was many years ago. We didn't spend any time looking for any of the locations mentioned in Patterson's book. It would be interesting to find the spots now.
My memories of Tsavo is that it was not overly impressive. The land was fairly flat, thorn scrub ran right up to the road, it was scorching hot during the day and there was a dearth of animals to be found. As a NP it worked great for the elephants, but for game viewing it was poor compared to most NP's at the time.
@Dinosaur I absolutely love your father's photos. Thanks for sharing them with us. Did your father draw the map showing Tsavo/Kilimanjaro? I love looking at that map. One thing I find interesting is the map shows Kilimanjaro at 19,563' , now it is 19,341'. I would doubt that cartographers would be so far off only 60 years ago and wonder if much of the difference is glacier melt.
I also see you have hunted Kenya. Was this prior to the 1978 shutdown on mammals or have you hunted birds more recently. It is my understanding they have shut bird hunting down as of 5 or so years ago. We would love to see your Kenya hunting photos as well.
G'day Wheels
You are a luckier man having experienced Tsavo during the day, I envy you. I was only a tot when my father used to take my elder sister and I to the Tsavo area, but being that young I couldn't remember anything. My father recalled how one day they were having a picnic near the Tsavo river, when my sister who was only a year older than me, unexpectedly took off around the thorn bushes which were only a few feet away. Well if you know kids, they are just so quick, and unless they are on a leash, they can be unstoppable.
As expected my father tore after her and gasped in fear, as my sister ran right up to a huge cobra which rose right up over her head with hood erected. The only thing that stopped it striking was that it had a huge frog in its mouth, what a relief for my parents, and one less life to my sister.
He had other stories on how he was crawling under/through the thorn bushes when he discovered that there were 4 x unusual coloured and shaped tree trunks surrounding him. Until he heard a rumbling noise above him, where he took off as he realised that he was under an elephant, the elephant taking off in the other direction.
The scrub was so thick along the river, as he also trod on an unseen crocodile, and thankfully my father was quicker off the mark. He also spoke of these strange spiders that used to approach his camp stretcher after dark, he called them sun spiders. He reckons they weren't exactly a spider, as they had huge fangs and looked almost scorpion like without the tail and pincers. He used to feed them the insects which flew to the nearby pressure lanterns, he said that the spiders would almost eat out of his hand, as they were pretty friendly. I discovered later that these spiders are similar to the camel spiders found up north.
There was also a huge red spitting cobra which would pass regularly through the camp, and once again, it posed no threat, and of course puff adders and scorpions. One of his words of advice was always to shake your boots when getting up in the morning, and never to put your camp lighting anywhere near your bed, as you will get all manor of bugs landing on your cot. Sausage flies, moths etcetera.
Before I was born, my father would be out camping with mum, and on one trip they were leaving Tsavo after dark, in an oil cooled Volkswagon Beetle. My mother said that they had to lock their car brakes up to a screeching halt on the sandy/dusty track as a huge mane-less male lion ambled across the road in front of them as though he didn't have a care in the world. I was told by both of my parents that the Lion's shoulder was higher than the bonnet (boot actually) of the VW, and as soon as the lion disappeared off the road into the darkness, my father, the lunatic, jumped out of the VW and went to measure the Lions footprints, as you may guess my mother was in hysterics telling him to get back into the car. The lion thankfully didn't return, and my mother said that the lions footprint was larger than his opened hand, fingers spread.
I was told these huge individual lions are Buffalo lions, they may pair up with other pride-less male lions to pull buffalo down using team work.
Wheels, the map that is uploaded above must have been an old park map, regrettably I do not think it is one of my fathers, as it looked as though it was cut out from a book, or a park map. It is still a good map to give people an idea of the areas in the vicinity of Tsavo.
As for my visit to Kenya, it was in the mid 1980's, and you are totally right hunting of Game animals was banned totally.
My uncle who still lives within Nairobi, up near Karen, at Langata has a lot of contacts and had a licence to hunt ducks up towards Thika way, on rice fields. Whether his licence was a game bird control licence, who knows ?? I do recall seeing water game bird hunts being advertised years ago, but I haven't seen any advertisement for a long time.
As for photos, I do wish that I took my camera, but didn't, which is sad. I did borrow my uncles video camera just to take some footage of his house, and a few chameleons that I caught in their garden, but that was it. Honestly, I am very photo shy, and sometimes get caught in photos by my mates, but those photos are Australia based.
Regards
Rob
