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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (11)

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (11)

Date: 2016-06-10
Our hardy Land Rover adventurers are still on their yearlong journey to follow the entire Great African Rift Valley, a story best told from the scribbles in Kingsley's sweat-stained expedition journals

Manyara a game-filled forested 'Garden of Eden' that runs down to a lake shore filled with birdlife. Elephant are plentiful and it's a great place to view Manyara's tree climbing lions. 'More baboons here than any other park,' explains Brad who runs his own safari company out of Arusha and knows this part of the Rift like the back of his hand. With a big 'dagga boy' buffalo giving him the evil eye, Lumbaye Lenguru adds a 'sipfull' of water to the Rift Valley calabash, this time taken from the lake's hot springs at Maji Moto.

The big rains have arrived late and we are in the thick of it - 15 people drowned in the Rift Valley whilst others made homeless by mud slides. Rained out last night but the sunrise views over the Rift with Mount Kenya in the distance made it worthwhile. We must push to reach the Murchison Falls for the start of our journey down the Western Rift.

Chief game warden of Bogoria, William Kimosop leads us in the footsteps of Gregory the Scottish geologist who in 1893 named this jagged rupture the Great African Rift Valley. We make it to the top of the Cherangani Hills to Iten where athletes and counselors endorse the expedition scroll - this high altitude village of champions has churned out a number of Olympic gold medalists.

Then it's by boat into the turbulent waters below the Murchison Falls where the wide languid Nile is transformed into an explosive froth of thunderous white water as it funnels through a narrow cleft in the Rift Valley Escarpment - it's easily the most impressive sight of its type in east Africa. And we add more water to the expedition calabash ...our journey down the Western Rift has begun. Will keep you posted.