Category Archives: national park

Africa, friends, national park, travel

Nakuru camping trip with a lion and ten pre-schoolers

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I’m not sure what was scarier – the lion was definitely quieter and better behaved overall.

I had originally planned that my three week visit to Tanzania would not involve a lot of traveling around. That didn’t last long as I soon got wind of a plan to travel up to Kenya for a week – partly for visa reasons, but mostly to go camping with various friends to mark Tesni’s birthday over a long weekend.

Sean (Tesni’s husband) had booked a private campsite in Nakuru National Park for us all for the weekend. I visited this park with AD five years ago on my first trip to Kenya – I was looking forward to seeing how it appeared now that the drought had been broken and the lake was no longer empty. Highlights from last time were all the rhino sightings and a herd of buffalo wandering through our campsite.

The advance party of two families arrived Friday, having driven through a lot of rain. I decided to travel over on Saturday with Bobby & Brandy – mostly because the park and camping fees are exorbitant if one is not an East African resident, but also I don’t think I would have fitted in the Prado with all the camping gear the Maarschalks had. It was great to catch up with B&B on the drive over – I rode with Bobby for my RVO mountain-bike adventure last year. By the Saturday evening everyone had arrived – we totaled twelve adults and ten children under the age of five. No-one told me I was signing up for that last part!

Before we had left home on Saturday morning, word had leaked out that a lioness had made an appearance on the edge of the campsite around breakfast time and then proceeded to take up residence in a large tree about thirty metres from the tents! She had quite a limp on her, so I assume had left her pride after a fight with another animal. Apart from the Saturday night (we saw her leave that evening & return the next morning), she spent most of the weekend that close to our camp. Needless to say, this put us rather on edge – especially with so many young children around.

But it all worked out well, and probably helped in keeping the children roaming too far when there was who-knows-what-else in the long grass surrounding the camping. Obviously hungry lions are quite useful for keeping children in check. Contrary to what I thought before the weekend, the game drives weren’t the highlight of the weekend – we saw many flamingoes, giraffes, buffalo, antelope, baboons, zebra and some big rhinos, but they couldn’t compare to just staying in camp and watching and listening to the wildlife nearby.

As well as our lion resident, we had a lot of zebra, buffalo and baboons pass through at various times. But the unexpected sighting was the huge hippopotamus that wandered through Sunday night. I didn’t even know there were hippos in the park (they don’t like the lake as it is quite alkaline) and there was no water close to our campsite; I was pleased by the hippo sighting as the only one I’d previously seen in the wild was in the Masaai Mara five years ago – & it was just sitting in a pond barely visible.

Generally the days camping were passed eating an awful lot of good camp food (bananas stuffed with chocolate, wrapped in tin foil and baked on the side of the campfire may be better than even toasted marshmallows), keeping the children amused, game drives trying to find elusive leopards & other lions and spending time with good friends.

Once the children had gone to bed around nightfall things were quiet and dark enough to hear more lions roaring not that far away, hyenas barking and jackals making some sort of racket. Realising that there were so many children around, I had intended to put my tent well away from all the others so that I might actually get some sleep. But in light of the lion situation, that didn’t seem so prudent – so I put my tent so it was loosely surrounded by (sometimes) sleeping families. While I didn’t think I would get much sleep, this had the advantage of being less likely to be eaten. As it happened, I slept very well – especially considering the morning reports of very unsettled children making a lot of noise at regular intervals.

In all, a very different safari to what I’ve become used to – but it was still fantastic. Enough writing, pictures:

Crested eagle.

There’s a lion in that tree centre-rear of photo.

For those that thought climbing a tree would be a viable way to escape a lion, think again – even injured she made it up OK.

Lion-watching while an awful lot of mushrooms cook.

Braai time!

Still keeping an eye on our lion friend.

That’s me escaping to the Prado with Chloe as the lioness makes her way to her favourite tree.

around home, bikepacking, bikes, MTB, national park, UK

Bikepacking the South Downs Way – finally

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For well over a year I’ve been meaning to ride the nearby South Downs Way as an overnight bikepacking trip. An ancient trail, it runs from Winchester generally south-east for a hundred miles along the South Downs to the coast at Eastbourne. To avoid the wet low lands, the path goes along as many ridges as possible – meaning that while the highest point is less than 250 metres above sea level, there is a lot of climbing.

With my time in the south of England running out, I gave up on trying to find a weekend that suited both John & me – and decided to ride it solo. I also gave up on trying to find a weekend with a good weather forecast – otherwise I’d never get to ride. So I packed my tent instead of my bivy bag and set off just after noon on a glorious Friday afternoon. I’d ridden the first 35 km section a few times, so there was nothing new there – just the views to admire.

The first half of the trail generally stays above 100 m altitude and had plenty of descents and then ascents quite close together. As you’re getting tired, the second half has the pairs of climbs and downhills spread further apart – but usually dropping down to a river close to sea level before climbing all the way back up again. Enjoying the views I was making faster progress than I imagined I would with a loaded bike – when I passed my first possible dinner stop, it was much too early to eat.

I found the biggest problem riding solo was that I had to open all the gates, of which there are many – close to a hundred, by myself. It sure breaks up the flow. Also without company the stops are less frequent and shorter – quite nice, but it also means I take fewer photos. As I neared 100 km in, the forecast rain finally started – conveniently there was a big empty barn to hide in for the night. While the steel roof was great for hiding from the downpours – it did keep me awake for a lot of the night.

As the wind also picked up as the barometer continued dropping, I made up my mind what to do for Saturday. I had briefly flirted with the idea of getting to Eastbourne and then turning around and making my back towards Winchester as far as possible before running out of time & having find a station to get a train back to my car. But with that idea now involving a strong headwind and the trail not being so interesting in the cloud, I had no desire to do the SDW double. So I stayed in bed until nine – luxury.

With little sleep and no time-pressure, the remaining sixty kilometres were a little slower. It was very overcast – so even fewer photos. In amongst the longer climbs, that were quite manageable, a couple really steep but short pinch climbs were hard work with a heavy bike – I was pleased to get to the end having ridden everything. There’s a new YHA at Southease near the end that serves a very good all-day breakfast roll – suitable fuel for the last couple of hills. With a big descent to the sea at Beachy Head I was in Eastbourne with the station to find. A very soft chocolate brownie didn’t last long – washed down with some refreshing, & surprisingly NZ, ginger beer.

Then started the three-hour & three-train trip back to my car – on which I found plenty of people to talk about bikepacking with. First an elderly couple returning from their break at the seaside (who kept talking about bikes in the thirties and the practicalities of carrying girls on bikes – apparently mine is no good) and then a fatbike (Salsa Mulkuk if anyone is interested) wielding bicycle repairman (without a cape) who was setting out to ride the SDW overnight back to Brighton – we had a lot to talk about.

An excellent day or so out on the bike, where I managed to stay dry, I was pleased to finally tick this ride off in its entirety before I leave. It also proved handy in seeing how I managed my bike (which was excellent) loaded on a longer hillier ride.

Starting out under the watchful eye of King Alfred – who made Winchester his capital




bikepacking, bikes, GPS, history, national park, UK

The Shipwrights Way

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With the January & February weather being so dire, my motivation to go bikepacking was low – lest I float away in the middle of the night. March has been, in comparison, very dry so far & the floods have receded in many places – so it was time to load up the bike and head out for a long ride, camping overnight. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled (online) across a new long-distance path (at fifty miles, it’s not that long) close to home in east Hampshire – The Shipwrights Way. Starting in the Alice Holt Forest, near Farnham – the trail uses bridleways, rail-trails and quiet country lanes mostly to follow an imaginary path that ancient oak trees would have taken to Portsmouth to be used in the building of medieval naval vessels.

It seemed an easily doable out & back overnight trip – I decided to start at the end (Portsmouth) instead of the beginning as it was quicker to drive there (I couldn’t be bothered being restricted by train times) & meant I was more likely to be wild-camping in the countryside rather than the city. It was easy enough to find free street parking near the seaside in Southsea at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, I was soon riding along the seafront in the unforecast sun. This first section (for me, actually Section 12) of the ride was soon over as I was waiting for the small ferry to take me to Hayling Island.

Waiting for the Hayling ferry

Most of this part of the route (Section 11) follows a rail-trail, Hayling Billy, so it was easy & pleasant riding – with views back over the harbour. Crossing onto the mainland I was soon riding through the town of Havant – hoping I’d be in the countryside soon. Sure enough, it was country lanes & then a bridleway (an ancient drovers’ road) into the village of Rowlands Castle – the castle is ruins now. The next section (8) paralleled the main London Waterloo-Portsmouth railway line (a lot of the route didn’t stray too far from this, & I crossed it numerous times) north surrounded by fields. Plonked in the middle of one of those fields, on a slight rise & seemingly quite isolated was St Hubert’s Church – built in 1053. For a couple of hundred metres north of Finchdean the whole width of the road was completely underwater – a slow pace was best for not getting soaked; sandbags were still to be seen, as were pipes carrying pumped water to drain from numerous properties – it hasn’t rained for two weeks, it must’ve been very wet.

St Hubert’s church

Having left the coast some time before, I had been climbing for a while – albeit gradually. As I was expecting from a previous visit: as soon as I hit Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QEP) there was the biggest climb of the entire route, not the most fun with a loaded bike but easily manageable. This coincided with the sun getting higher & me getting noticeable hotter. I finally saw my first of the twenty new sculptures along the route – each relevant to history or wildlife of the particular area they are set. Of the twenty, I only saw about five – eight are yet to be installed yet, but I still missed quite a few. Immediately behind the sheep sculpture, the trees had been cleared to give a nice look over the downs.

Looking out over the South Downs National Park from Queen Elizabeth Park

The first I saw of the many new statues on the route – a Hampshire Downs sheep

It was a steep downhill section past chalk pits hundreds of years old (of which I enjoyed reading the industrial history) to the village of Buriton before a mostly sealed section into Petersfield – which handily had a market to provide me with lunch.

Buriton

Crossing under & over the busy A3 and then the railway again, into Liss I joined another rail-trail. This time, it was through a nature reserve & used to be the Longmoor Military Railway – that used to go from the mainline at Liss to the large military camp at Longmoor. At one stage it was a seventy mile length of track & saw a huge assembling of rolling stock to go to the continent after D-Day. I was still finding evidence of large sidings in woods many miles north. Annoyingly, the route is not yet established for Section 4: Lindford to Liss – so I tried to find a more direct way than the main roads. This involved some slightly damp off-road cycling trails & then I found myself on footpaths – footpaths aren’t a good idea with a loaded bike as the gates are extremely difficult to get a loaded bike through or over.

Most of the rest was through Alice Holt Forest, which was well frequented by families enjoying the sunshine – there’s also a very large adventure type playground that seemed very popular. I didn’t stop as I feared I’d not be able to weave out of the melee of kids if I did. Shortly after I reached the end (start) of the route at Bentley – stopping briefly for croissant, cake & ginger beer I turned to see how far back I could get. With eight hours of travelling time for eighty kilometres, I figured I could do the easier overall-downhill direction in six hours.

But as I’d dragged my camping gear all the way it seemed a waste of effort to just return to the car & drive home that night. So I had steak dinner in Petersfield and continued in the dark to QEP. Well dark by now, my dynamo (in the hub of my front wheel) powered k-lite front light was super bright & more than enough to light up the trail & blind oncomers; the charging system worked well in the day either charging AA batteries for my GPS or charging my phone (via USB). The steep climb up past the chalk pits was tough for legs that aren’t used to twelve-hour rides carrying a heavy load. At the top of QEP, after startling a large herd of deer, I found the picnic shelter that I’d noticed early in the day. With no one about, three walls, a roof and relatively flat woodchip floor was good enough for me – no need to put up the tent. In bed by nine, I was later woken a noisy pack of cubs (of the marauding boy scout variety) out hiking to an unknown (to me) campsite. Much to my relief they continued on after noticing the bike & strange man sleeping in the shelter – they were rather noisy.

An even more stunning day dawned Sunday – I was fed, packed up & riding by quarter past seven. I was right – it didn’t even take me two hours to get back to the car, although I opted out of trying to get the ferry as I couldn’t be sure I’d make it in time & then not have to wait an hour for the next one. I’m glad I wasn’t out long as I was much-overdressed for the sun & heat. Even so, I dumped my heavy load of camping equipment in the car & enjoyed a pleasant ride along the waterfront to the end of the route in Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard. I always like the naval history in Portsmouth & I saw some different things compared to my previous visits.

A little off the route at Chalton

Royal Garrison Church, Portsmouth – fire-bombed in WWII, part of it is still roofed

So a great ride all-up, although I wouldn’t recommend it for the mountain-bike trails – I would recommend it for a mostly easy ride to link together a lot of interesting history, nice villages & scenic countryside. There’s so much I missed by not stopping more, I think it would be quite a pleasant walk if one was so inclined. Now to find the next overnight trip around Hampshire/Wiltshire/Dorset or somewhere suitably close by.

around home, bikes, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

New Forest cycle tour

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Not so long ago I stumbled across the new Forestry Commission map of cycle routes in the New Forest. I printed a couple of copies & put them to one side, not really thinking too much of it. But over the last few weeks successive people have come into my office & pilfered copies – so I keep printing more. Finally I got around to studying it a bit more closely last week & realised just how extensive the network really is – there’s not much coverage in the corner of the Forest I live in, so I’ve never really investigated before.

With no real plans for the weekend, Sunday looked the better of the two days to be in the sun so I started to loosely plan an all-day ride. As it was, Sunday was a glorious sun-drenched day so I headed out early to make the most of it. The first part getting to the marked trails was ridiculously muddy & proper hard work – just as well it’s flat; even so, it wasn’t long before I had to shed a layer.

Mostly on the cycle trails, with a small amount on quite roads (except for crossing the very busy dual-carriageway A31 near Rufus Stone), I made steady progress and within a few hours I was pretty much on the other side of the Forest. This was not somewhere I’d ever considered riding before, so that was good going – and at sixty kilometres – about halfway through what I thought would be the day’s distance.

There’s never a shortage of nice pubs serving food on such rides, so at about one o’clock I happened on the Old Beams Inn & stopped long enough to actually take a photo. This one had the Sunday carvery going, which is quite popular; after only eating half a Clif Bar since setting out a huge plate of roast meat & veges really hit the spot. Pleasingly, I didn’t get a stitch as I rode off.

While the first half of the day was mainly off-road, I’d planned the second half predominantly on-road as I was keen to get down to Christchurch or Highcliffe & see the sea. Heading south on the edge of the Avon flood plain, there was still an awful lot of surface water from the last weeks of rain on the lanes to ride through or avoid. I had a quick peak at Highcliffe Castle (didn’t think to get the camera out) & enjoyed the miles of cliff top riding from Barton-on-Sea east towards Lymington as the sun slowly sunk. With just quiet country lanes left, the last twenty kilometres wasn’t really as much of a struggle as I thought it would be. A great day out, not really rushing & with plenty of general exploring. While 125 km ranks as my longest ride in a day, it was nowhere near the hardest & I haven’t suffered since with aching muscles – so that’s a bonus.