On The Wild Side

Story by Brett Atkinson. Photography by Simeon Patience and Brian High.

Meru National Park in northern Kenya is closely identified with recent history’s most famous lion, but spotting the king of the beasts here is not a simple task.

We have had a dusty and bumpy nine-hour journey from Nairobi, and the savannah that was once home to Elsa, the orphaned lioness, is revealing other inhabitants instead.

Tiny baby crocodiles skitter through meandering streams and rivers as shy elephants peer quizzically from behind spiny acacia trees. The near horizon is punctuated by elegant giraffes and, in the distance, a rumbling smudge of silky African dust reveals one of Kenya’s largest herds of Cape buffalo. But any lions remain concealed by gently swaying grass that has grown taller after recent rains.

The story of Born Free began in Meru when conservationists Joy and George Adamson adopted the orphaned Elsa in 1956. Joy’s bestselling book was published in 1960 and, in 1966, the movie version of Born Free became a major Hollywood hit.

By the early 1970s Meru was one of Kenya’s most visited national parks, with more than 40,000 visitors annually. Attracted by the Elsa story, visitors flocked to see more than 3000 elephants, rare black rhinos, and more than 300 different species of birds. Disaster struck in the mid-1970s, when poachers began a systematic attack on Meru’s wildlife. Up to 90 per cent of the park’s elephants and all the black rhinos were slaughtered. Joy Adamson was murdered in 1980 in nearby Shaba Game Reserve; in 1989 two tourists and George Adamson were slain inside Meru’s boundaries. The Kenyan Wildlife Service and the International Fund for Animal Welfare were spurred into action and, almost two decades later, Meru’s wildlife has been significantly restocked.

Ironically, three decades of intermittent poaching has produced benefits for visitors. The wildlife retains a wariness and shyness that is unusual in other more visited Kenyan parks. In more popular areas, like the Masai Mara, morning and afternoon game drives are usually accompanied by a phalanx of minibuses. In Meru, just two lodges are secreted amidst the park’s 870 square kilometres, so on most days it’s just you and your guide in an open-top 4WD.

The best of Meru’s lodges – and the ideal antidote to a long day on Kenyan roads – is the intimate Elsa’s Kopje. It sits atop the stark terracotta boulders of Mughwango Hill with views across Meru’s expansive grasslands. George Adamson had his final camp at the base of the hill, and black and white photographs of Joy, George, and Elsa the lioness decorate the lodge’s lobby and restaurant area.

Just nine luxury cottages nestle amidst sparse trees and imposing rocks. Ours was set down a swing bridge that provided the ultimate in privacy. Inside, the decor is both rustic and luxurious, with a four-poster bed crafted from local timber, an outdoor bath replenished by spring water, and an expansive deck that makes the perfect platform for spying families of elephants wandering across the savannah below.

Eventually, we shake the Kenyan dust from our weary joints and journey back across the swing bridge to cool down in the beautiful swimming pool. It’s built into rocks that Elsa once proudly commandeered. We face a delicious dilemma – whether to make the most of the charm and food of the lodge, or to maximise our time in the park, hoping to come face to face with what we have really travelled here for.

Eventually, we discover the perfect middle ground. We forgo a mid-morning brunch of local fruit and freshly cooked pastries in the restaurant for much earlier sunrise breakfasts of Kenyan coffee and ciabatta sandwiches in the scrubby African bush. The ritual of sundowner drinks of local Tusker beer and pour-your-own gin and tonics is replaced one night with a twilight cat-fishing expedition.

And when the heat of the noonday African sun impels most species to relax, we head back to the lodge for lazy lunches. Our guide for making the most of our three days at Elsa’s Kopje is George. He’s not as famous in Kenya as Elsa’s proxy father, but still oozes charm and wit. He claims, poker-faced, not to like us – “But I might like you better if you came back next year”.

George is the consummate animal tracker. Hanging out of the 4WD, he identifies brooding white-backed vultures casting a menacing shadow across tiny dik dik impalas, and doe-eyed gazelles poking their pretty heads up as they hear our diesel drone.

Elsa’s legacy is finally revealed on our last morning. Under an acacia tree just a few hundred metres from the park entrance, we see, very close by, a lioness and a couple of cubs tucking into a freshly killed zebra. A vulture is circling above, awaiting the opportunity for carrion. Just metres from us, the two cubs eventually lose interest in their food and playfully wrestle each other in the morning shade like a couple of domestic moggies.

It’s taken three days and countless hours on bumpy roads and bumpier tracks to have this opportunity, but it’s been worth the wait.

Brett Atkinson travelled to Kenya courtesy of the House of Travel.

FACT FILE:

New Zealanders travelling to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi can either fly on Emirates via Dubai (a total time of around 26 hours) or fly via Sydney and Johannesburg with Qantas and South African Airways (which takes around 22 hours). From Nairobi to Meru National Park is a nine-hour drive or a one-hour flight to the local airfield.

Packages at Elsa’s Kopje include two game drives per day, all meals from the northern Italian-influenced kitchen, and all drinks including beer and spirits.

Virginia McKenna, the actress who played Joy Adamson in Born Free, is a regular guest at Elsa’s Kopje, and in 1984 established the Born Free Foundation. See www.bornfree.org.uk for information about the organisation’s work in protecting threatened species across the world.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2008 Plenty magazine Summer 2008 published for Hanover Group. Subscribe to Plenty today.

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