lived off the Tanaâs heavily silted water for eighteen years but it needed treating before we could drink it. Watched by highly opportunistic crocodiles and wallowing hippos, I would collect the water in big drums, then add alum to get rid of the worst of the sediment. After a few days Hamisi boiled it over an open fire, then filtered it through diatomite candles (which was the classic way of filtering water) to further reduce the sediment. It was a lot ofeffort to go to for a glass of water but, given the heat at Kora and the lack of sodas, we needed it for mixers. George used to mask its taste with Treetop orange squash. To carry the drums from the river to the camp three miles away we really needed the Land Rover to be working.
I learnt everything there was to know about that vehicle. I took it to pieces and put it back together again, modified parts and replaced others with ones I made from scratch. It makes me hell to work for today as everything that needs doing in our workshop now I can do myself. I started on my dadâs Vauxhall 10, moved on to his Singer SM1500, then the Land Rovers; now I can even work out the hydraulics on the JCBs that Anthony Bamford sends us from England. For the wiring on our Dutch-donated Suzuki Grand Vitaras I need a bit of help from the computer.
The Land Roverâs worst enemy at Kora was a natural one: the vicious thorns that grew around the camp. Commiphora myrrh trees are very beautiful but the thorns that protect their buds and fresh shoots from rhino, elephant and other browsers are death to tyres. We had punctures the whole time and seemed to spend half our lives repairing them. When I first arrived at Kora, we didnât have a proper workshop so mending a puncture was a major performance. First we would have to break the bead â the part where the rim meets the tyre. We did this by jacking the whole weight of the car on to the sidewall of the tyre. This had to be done very carefully so as not to damage the wall. Tyres were very expensive and we had no money. Bead broken, we took the tyre off the rim with a couple of tyre irons, pulled out the inner tube, located the hole in water and mended it with patches vulcanized to the tube. After levering the tyre back on to the rim came the fun part â forty-five minutes to an hour of hard work with a foot pump to get pressure back into the tyre. It was back-breaking labour, often required on drives to Asako, the small village twenty-six miles away.
Kora liesa hundred miles to the east of Mount Kenya, the stately mountain that stands snow-covered and alone on the equator, its silhouette unmarred by foothills or ranges. Snow has never fallen on Koraâs yellow soil where the low altitude ensures that the temperature is always high. Waterbuck, lesser kudu, giraffe and eland were all common then, as were the predatory hyena and caracal. Elephant and rhino were ever-present and widespread â the rhino almost common. We always had to watch out for them on our walks, as we did for buffalo. There were also decent numbers of zebra and oryx, Grantâs gazelle and bushbuck. There were, however, no leopards: they had been hunted out when the fashion for leopardskin was at its height in the 1940s.
Neighbouring Meru had suffered a similar fate â but it was a neighbour only on the map. There was no bridge between the two banks of the Tana river for hundreds of miles so for us to get to the other side opposite our camp it was a ten-hour drive. Because of this isolation Kora was more protected and did not fall victim to poachers until later than Meru, which became a notorious poachersâ lair in the years to come. Thatâs not to say there was no poaching at all.
We had the occasional visitor. The Wakamba, who live in the area to the south of Kora, are famously good hunters and used to come into Kora whenever they wished. But they used poisonous acocanthera-smeared arrows to hunt elephant for ivory, and wire snares
I learnt everything there was to know about that vehicle. I took it to pieces and put it back together again, modified parts and replaced others with ones I made from scratch. It makes me hell to work for today as everything that needs doing in our workshop now I can do myself. I started on my dadâs Vauxhall 10, moved on to his Singer SM1500, then the Land Rovers; now I can even work out the hydraulics on the JCBs that Anthony Bamford sends us from England. For the wiring on our Dutch-donated Suzuki Grand Vitaras I need a bit of help from the computer.
The Land Roverâs worst enemy at Kora was a natural one: the vicious thorns that grew around the camp. Commiphora myrrh trees are very beautiful but the thorns that protect their buds and fresh shoots from rhino, elephant and other browsers are death to tyres. We had punctures the whole time and seemed to spend half our lives repairing them. When I first arrived at Kora, we didnât have a proper workshop so mending a puncture was a major performance. First we would have to break the bead â the part where the rim meets the tyre. We did this by jacking the whole weight of the car on to the sidewall of the tyre. This had to be done very carefully so as not to damage the wall. Tyres were very expensive and we had no money. Bead broken, we took the tyre off the rim with a couple of tyre irons, pulled out the inner tube, located the hole in water and mended it with patches vulcanized to the tube. After levering the tyre back on to the rim came the fun part â forty-five minutes to an hour of hard work with a foot pump to get pressure back into the tyre. It was back-breaking labour, often required on drives to Asako, the small village twenty-six miles away.
Kora liesa hundred miles to the east of Mount Kenya, the stately mountain that stands snow-covered and alone on the equator, its silhouette unmarred by foothills or ranges. Snow has never fallen on Koraâs yellow soil where the low altitude ensures that the temperature is always high. Waterbuck, lesser kudu, giraffe and eland were all common then, as were the predatory hyena and caracal. Elephant and rhino were ever-present and widespread â the rhino almost common. We always had to watch out for them on our walks, as we did for buffalo. There were also decent numbers of zebra and oryx, Grantâs gazelle and bushbuck. There were, however, no leopards: they had been hunted out when the fashion for leopardskin was at its height in the 1940s.
Neighbouring Meru had suffered a similar fate â but it was a neighbour only on the map. There was no bridge between the two banks of the Tana river for hundreds of miles so for us to get to the other side opposite our camp it was a ten-hour drive. Because of this isolation Kora was more protected and did not fall victim to poachers until later than Meru, which became a notorious poachersâ lair in the years to come. Thatâs not to say there was no poaching at all.
We had the occasional visitor. The Wakamba, who live in the area to the south of Kora, are famously good hunters and used to come into Kora whenever they wished. But they used poisonous acocanthera-smeared arrows to hunt elephant for ivory, and wire snares
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