The Milgis Trust

Let me take you back into the Matthews Range in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya… We are on a ’safari’, that means we are on a journey, walking with camels carrying our camping equipment, and food…. We are crossing the Matthews, and on the way the plan was to conquer Matthews peak, the impressive cone shaped summit jutting out on the east side of this extraordinary mountain Range, but it wasn’t to be…I’m afraid

It started raining!! Camels just have to smell mud, or wet grass and they are already slipping and sliding..Their feet made for the flat desert can not cope.. It became a disaster.. They couldn’t go forwards or backwards, their long lanky legs doing the splits in all directions… They are truly the ’ships of the Sandy desert’!! We had to stop, find a place to camp … Make a big fire, and have a cup of tea!, and hope tomorrow is going to be better… And by the way it was!, and we managed to get all 29 camels off the very steep mountain safely…

Its a nightmare I’ve had in my sleep before, but never lived it!!…

In the mean time just a few pictures of the beautiful things in the mountains.. This little ‘ perfect ‘ Aloe is only about 6 inches in width.. Growing out of this rock..

The Matthews are famous for their Butterflies, they were every where.. This was the only one that would sit still!… Look at the blue wash around the white patches… can anyone identify this one??

This Cycad, endemic to the Matthews, and Ndoto ranges… Not only do they live for a long time now, but they also lived at the same time as the Dinosaurs.. Beautiful plants, and this little scene, with the Aloes, the cedars, and the rocks beats any home made garden!

Inside the forest..

Is this a Speke’s Hinged Tortoise?? He was up high in the mountains! We did not see alot of game, but saw plenty of signs, and heard Elephant, below is a place they come to dig for salt, you can see their tusk marks in the holes, and wallow in the mud.. plenty of Buffalo, bushbuck, many tracks of small cats, mongooses and Hyenas..

The Milgis Trust is working hard to keep the area that we cover, nearly 6000 square kms, from The Matthews Range, Ndotos and up to Mt Nyiru and all the areas surrounding these mountains, safe from destruction, and to keep the wildlife safe, and we employ 25 local scouts from the the Samburu tribe, they all have radios and GPS and record and report to base, any people destroying, or burning the forests, or trees or poaching of wildlife… We do not arrest and march the people off we call meetings, and we talk, we call it gentle conservation… We have gained great respect, through out this vast area, and I can see myself that we are winning as we have been doing Camel/walking safaris for 25 years, through this entire area, and I see a very big difference…

Please everyone can we ask you to support our ‘gentle conservation’ in the Northern Frontier of Kenya, to keep this VERY SPECIAL part of the world from being destroyed…

This is one of the Scouts meticulously [ he never went to school ] writing out his findings after a days walking through these special mountains His name is Lesongo, [Buffalo.. his identification] he worked for KWS for many years, and joined us when he was retired.. The community chose him as their scout for the area, he is highly respected, by every one, and is very serious about his work…

The Matthews Range… Or as the Samburu call it ‘ Ol Donyo Lenkiyio ‘ … ‘ the dewlap of a cow’, another of the Samburus Sacred mountain ranges, in fact they say if they lose them, then its the end of the Samburu tribe, is another of those beautiful Islands in the Desert in the Northern Frontier district… Each Island is so different from the other… They are not as steep and sheer as the Ndotos, but they go up in layers, each ridge, abit higher than the last, until you reach the top, averaging around 7500/8000 feet… The Forest is largely unspoilt, and vast, clinging onto the slopes, massive gnarled old trees, 100’s of years old, who could tell a story or two about the old days, and even now… Very very few people know these mountains well, in fact just a few hunter gatherers,who have lived off the forest all their lives, but they keep things secret… Wildlife is thriving up there, Elephants, Buffalo, leopard, and De-Brazza Monkeys, and a multitude of other forest animals and birds that quietly get on with their lives, tucked away from the world… Birds have no fear of humans as they hardly know what they are!, they come close up to check you out!!… When you are up in the Forest, its difficult to believe that there is another world out there… Where you all are!…Its a special place…

Our good Friends from Austria, who have done several camel safaris with us, and avid Milgis Trust supporters, wanted this time to discover the Matthews abit more!…they wanted to stand on ‘Kimanic’, Matthews Peak!!… But I mentioned, November may not be the right time but lets try!!!

Uh Oh!!… This was the day before we left.. interesting sign, but actually the Samburu say that a rainbow holds the rain back!!… Behind the rainbow is the ‘dewlap of the cow’ The northern end of the Range..

Eerie Milgis, the morning we were setting off,,, Most extraordinary for the hot windy Milgis Lugga… Was it telling us something!!

But Up, Up, Up we went, past all the layers, to the ridge, above the Famous Ilgwe pass, where the Samburu won a big battle against the Laikipiak… The Samburu, apparently!, chipped away at the sides of these rocks with their spears, so that they could steal cattle and run, across the pass… which was impossible before! And they did, and now in memory of this very ‘famous’ or important piece of history of the Samburu when you pass, you pick a branch and put it on the pile, on either side of the pass…

Ilgwe pass is below..

Northern Matthews.. in the distance is Ngurnit, east side of the Ndotos

Matthews peak.. we didn’t make it there!!.. I started raining ,pouring… The Samburu sang with joy even if they were getting soaked…

To be continued!…

Hi every one, sorry to have disappeared! Just back from a beautiful camel safari through the green hills of the Northern Frontier District!!… Its beautiful up there, we’ve had to cross flooded luggas, and slip and slide through mud, and best of all just watch the grass grow, and watching all the animals gain strength, and even to run away…

Crossing the Seiya Lugga.. Nov 09.. Camels know too well how dangerous it can be, as they can fall into pockets of air under the sand and sink in up to their heads, in water

Green grass… You probably wonder why I took this picture but its an unusual site in the N.F.D… Its incredible!! I took too many pictures of green grass..I’ll only bore you with one!!

..Desert warthogs, taken early Oct. 09,with a very simple camera, surviving on the only grass available, which is like thorns, very dry and hard, too weak to bother to run away… now you won’t see them for dust… The wildlife has suffered very badly, but if it hadn’t.t been for the Milgis Trust scouts many more would have perished, through lack of water..

Compared to the rest of Kenya so far, we have been very lucky with rain, although it is very patchy… But in the last year hundreds and thousands of trees have been cut down, and uncountable livestock has died… We came across people that have lost almost every thing they own… Its hard, but they now need to think why…. Too many people trying to live off too little, brings disaster… Are the pastoral people going to change their principals!??? As you know one of the most important mission of the Milgis Trust is to ‘conserve the peoples way of life’ in this magical country… But one thing has to change and that is the amount of stock that can live off this semi desert land… Actually, as I say, Nature has done the job, this time but its caused a lot of suffering…

Just for fun… 1st Picture taken 9 th October 09 showing tree chopped down for a hungry goat …. 2nd Pic taken end October… Same area!!

The Manager, with the area scouts are at the moment out to do a massive awareness campaign, not so much to tell the people but to see if they have learnt something… In the managers words… ‘In general the response from all the people we talk to is indicating that the last drought has opened the eyes of many in terms of the numbers of livestock we keep and the destruction of the environment. Many report that they went all the way to Marti and eventually came back to the Milgis lugga, [where people do not cut trees any more!] which rescued their animals. LOTS TO DO!!…

With your support the Milgis Trust would love to own night camera traps to capture the nocturnal activities of the wildlife within the busy Milgis ecosystem. Each and every morning the Milgis team identifies countless tracks and spoors of highly timid creatures of the night such as the Lion, Aardvark, African Wild Cat, Porcupine, Civet, Ratel and Leopard as well as numerous other mammals, reptiles, insects and birds that dwell within this land. The Aardvark above all is an important animal for the Samburu – one sighting of this incredibly shy creature means you are blessed with luck for life.

But without the necessary equipment sightings are seldom recorded. To collect, record and share such physical information on these nocturnal animals would support the awareness and understanding of the Milgis Trust’s work whilst encouraging communities to continue in their conservation efforts and aid the Trust’s scouts in providing further security for the wildlife where it is needed most.

I n d o n a t i n g o n e n i g h t c a m e r a t r a p the Milgis Trust can implement an unobtrusive and sustainable surveillance unit, collecting much needed data to help substantiate the amazing successes the Trust is receiving in the increase in wildlife species and numbers to the area, not to mention the unidentified species we believe to exist within the Trust’s habitats.

1 Night Camera Trap Uk £ 199 only!

*As part of the donation the Milgis Trust would be proud to issue you with regular prints or digital copies of the very best photos that your donated camera has captured*

Unbelievable!!… One day it was cloudy all over and raining , next day.. 11 October, not a cloud in the sky, for as far as the eye can see, but it is very very clear, which is a good sign, so we think that it will be back just after the new moon… We quite often call this first rain the grass rains, and then the main rains should follow… We had 8 mm on the 9th October, and 15 mm on the 10th, at the Milgis Base… So this is ‘not to sniff at’ and the whole place is beginning to burst into green, and with in a few days the flowers will start popping out… The Seiya Lugga is still flowing, so the news is still good from Northern Kenya!!…..

Picture of Mt Kenya, taken on a clear day from Elkanto… 110 Kms away.. Very unusual to see this far!, and so clear…

I’d like to think as I write this, that there are several baby elephants lolling around in the water that is still flowing… They don’t get this luxury too often, so lets hope they are all having fun!! What do you think Mark!!… Shall we whip back out there to catch it on film!!..

Thanks for all the wonderful positive comments, all of you, and for the good wishes for the brave Samburu people, who have lost so much during this drought, and with the rains arriving will lose more, sadly…Thats how it goes, I’m afraid.. BUT…They are good recoverer’s from disasters, and will be generous with each other, to get them selves back on the road…

Yes we have had the most wonderful crop of fruit along the luggas, the Salvadora Persica, against all odds is fruiting furiously.. Another of natures amazing rescue packets just when things looked really bad… As you walk through the Salvadora, the bird song is deafening, the baboons are all talking, Every one is eating Salvadora fruit!!….Wish I could play the sounds, as I took these two photographs.. The first picture was meant to be of a bird , but it flew away!, so I had to settle with Lentokunye gorging on fruit, while out on a patrol!!…

Salvadora fruit.. It has a very peppery taste to it…

‘Breakfast’ in the Milgis!

Not only have we received this beautiful fruit but also a wind fall of donations, from 3 kind people… I THANK Phillipp, Wanda, and Anna… for being so generous this time… and would like to assure you all again that every donation is so much appreciated.. What can we say but thank you a million….

I am off to do some filming ‘Elephants and Samburu’, and their life together, down on the Milgis for the next two weeks, should be very interesting…..

Finally, I was sleeping under the stars on the last full moon, and woke up in the middle of the night to this wonderful sight.. The planet is Jupiter!! The ring was gone about ten minutes later… This has got to be bringing us good news!

I reckon this is a good sign… FOR LOTS OF RAIN!?

We are all conservationists , us lot who write the blogs and our readers!, but I can see we are divided, about SNAKES!!..Thanks so much for every ones nice ‘ good recovery’ comments to Pete!… Actually he is back in hospital, as now the secondary infection which we have been warned about is coming out.. Abscesses, but we hope to have that under control soon, and get on to the ‘home strait soon’… Ay, Ay, Ay…The moral of the story is don’t get bitten by a snake! We all know that but as Anna hopes, and I hope!!, it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time… But Anna, I thought two wrongs made a right!?? To be positive the Right of this is we’ve all learnt abit more, and all your comments are adding to our experience…But Sheryl, when you come to Africa, if I’ve made 48 years with out even a threat from a snake, don’t worry!!.. I’ll send a Samburu into the shower with you with his ‘rungu’ because after two days here we won’t beable to live with you!!!

Our trip to the doc., turned out to be a ‘funny’ story, now at least, as Pete has got over it, and the doc apologised!! We had been told that if there are any signs of soft swellings etc to go and see a doctor…So we make an appointment, and head to Nanyuki Cottage hospital, Dr Butt is an expert on snake bite, but as we are getting out of the car we get a phone call that don’t bother to come unfortunately there has been two emergencies, and he can’t see you, but we persevered and waited, and we were told 2 hours and he will be with you… Good news.. !! But suddenly, 15 minutes before our ‘D’ time a vehicle comes racing in at high speed..There was guy who had been shot, so we were told sorry but you’ll have to come back tomorrow.. Luckily the head nurse had seen Pete, and she told the doctor… Sorry please give Pete 5 minutes… When he saw Pete’s ankle, he now realised he had two more emergencies, but the operating theatre was already occupied.. The doc made a quick decision, and Pete had to endure a ‘bush type op.!’as if he had left it any longer, it would turned into septicaemia… Pete nearly expired!.. But he survived to tell the tale, and today he is feeling so much better!!..

Bob, actually probably the snake expert of all of us!… glad you saw my blog, actually was going to contact you on this experience, when you update your book, you must ask Wamba hospital, about all the various, esp.red spitter bites they deal with.. While we were there was a woman who was bitten on her finger, and they actually brought the snake in for identification!… On our part, at 3 am with Pete there was no sign of panic, or surprise they went about getting the Fav-Afrique anti-venom, into Pete as soon as possible!!… Two weeks before two children sleeping in the same bed, one was bitten on the cheek, pretty big reaction, the other one was bitten on the forehead,.. no reaction at all .. obviously all the venom had gone into the first, one!.. Both cases were lucky to be close to Wamba!.. That Rendille kid was pretty lucky to find you!.. The good news!!, as most of us conservationists believe… is really, snakes are usually heading in the opposite direction, and don’t want to know… What is strange about this incident is… The snake came from the out side.. he was not cornered, Pete actually was, although he did not know it, until it was too late.. !! Wrong place at wrong time!!.. or what??

You may be wondering ‘why the silence’, on my part… No blogs, but this ordeal ‘got’ to me thats for sure!!… Imagine this situation!!… Friday 5th June 9.30 pm, we are at Elkanto.. miles from nowhere.. We were meant be leaving on a dream safari to climb over the Ndoto Mountains… But it wasn’t to be.. Pete Ilsley, my partner and a trustee of the Milgis Trust, had just finished his open air shower, standing there drying his back, when he feels a tap on his leg, and then a second tap… Its full moon, but his leg is in the shadows, and he can’t see what it is, so he finds his torch, thinking it may be a big cricket or something else like that, thats landed on his leg!! Not a man to panic, as sometimes brushing things off your self can be more dangerous…. BUT Ha Ha… It was a five foot copper coloured collared spitting cobra, literally chewing on his leg…

This is a juvenile copper coloured spitting cobra… Not the one that got Pete!

A sight he will never forget!!.. Unbelievably frightening, he hit it hard with his towel twice before he let go… He shouted ‘Helen, Helen I’ve been bitten by a snake… ‘ By this time, I was fast a sleep, I was really tired… but the moment I saw the bite marks I knew there was no more sleep to be had, and that we had to move fast !!.. OUR NIGHT MARE HAD BEGUN!.. The most important thing is not to panic! … I was given some BLACK STONES 25 years ago, by a Belgian guy who came on safari… I have carried them on every single trip since then and never used them!….. So the first thing I did was cut through the bite marks to make them bleed, and stuck the black stone on both bites… Do they work?? We believe they do!! many people are divided, from absolutely NOT, don’t know, and they DO work… We are definitely in the ‘believe in them’ category, after what we went through!!.. All the Samburu ran to help, and we made a decision that we had to get to a hospital, AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE!.. So ten guys picked him up in a blanket, and headed down the mountain side to the vehicle… We wrapped the whole leg in crepe bandages to try to stem the flow of poison to the rest of the body… and we set off… The excruciating pain that followed, was like somebody peeling off his skin, and rubbing salt in… It is only 91.5 kms to Wamba Hospital, but it took us five and a half hours of hell, to get there…there is hardly a road to start with, and the part of the road that exists was badly washed away, in the last rains… Not this year!! Pete was complaining of unbelievable pain in his stomach, which we later found out was the poison [enzymes] literally digesting Pete’s insides… 3 am we eventually arrive and Pete tells me he can taste blood in his mouth… Wamba hospital can take full credit for saving Pete’s life, but it was a battle, also to get the pain under control, and eventually they ‘knocked him out’… Luckily he knew nothing until Sunday morning… But we had a very worrying Saturday…

I am so sad this has happened…I LOVE those snakes.. I have lived side by side with them all these years, why did this one get so angry. It was not cornered, was it chasing a mouse, or looking for water, or just crazy with humans, and all that we are doing to destroy our world?? I was born and brought up living in the bush, I enjoy it so much because it is not possible to get lonely, as there is always something around , be it a lizard, mouse, snake, bird, dikdik, cricket, scorpion, hyena, Genet cat what ever… all the beautiful things that live in the bush, and now I feel let down… Now every one tells me you can not live with snakes??… Two weeks later Pete is doing well.. sounds like hes a snake hater now!!.. and I don’t blame him.. He still has a very swollen foot, and who knows which way it will go, but amazingly no necrosis, which we were warned of… I think that was because of the BLACK STONE!

In all those 100s and 1000s of acres of land, why does this spot get a signal!..

A busy moment in the office…

Sending an email from miles away from no where! Or trying as my last blog tells you!

Now you know why the blogging can be a touch sporadic!!… We left Elkanto at 5.30 am, for our jaunt up this hill, armed with mobile phones, and computers to climb 1600 feet higher than the surrounding area to get a signal… Its over1000 feet higher than Elkanto!! We went to see if we could send our emails, and our blogs from here as we are finding the satellite phone abit expensive!…Just recently Safari com, a mobile phone company, put a mast up at Baragoi, and this is the only place one can get a signal around here!!..

The View from the telephone booth!.. Up to the right is the radio hill, and down in the valley is Elkanto with the Matthews Range behind…. This is Lesoloyia trying to send a blog!!! Just in this 4 meter patch is where we should get a signal……

Nobody was lucky this day except the woman who was so happy to hear her son in Mombasa!!… She had come 20 kilometres to make this call… None of us got through!..Hey we walked along way as well..?. We were told by Lolokuria, the man standing on the left, who is one of the radio operators for the Milgis Trust that if its windy it works better… We didn’t wait for it to get windy, as we had a long walk home, and a long climb at the end in the heat of the day…

Stella is trying to send an email, Pete is holding the modem up, in one hand while he trys to make some phone calls himself… Stella is feeling a little crowded, shes got three dogs crowding her in the only bit of shade… The shade is just a few branches that have been cut and and balanced over these bushes! She reckons its better than the concrete jungle [Blog April 18th]she used to work in!!

This woman is speaking to her son in Mombasa.. She prefers to have the phone on ‘loud speaker’, as she can’t handle it next her ear… She is getting good news from Mombasa, that it is raining!… She wants her son to know that things are not so well, at home… The goats are sick, and theres nothing for them to eat… And water is difficult.. But other wise we are fine!… Samburu people are never miserable or negative about a situation like this… The harder the times the tougher they get!!