Walking Wild

AREA & ACTIVITIES

Habitat & Wildlife
Lewa is a 62,000 acre wildlife conservancy, made up of around 48,000 acres of privately owned land (predominantly by the Craig family whose family has been in the area since 1924), and 14,000 acres of national forest. It lies on the transitional zone between the Mount Kenya highlands and the semi-arid savannah to the north at an altitude of between 4,500 and 6,000ft above sea level. Although most of the conservancy is set aside for wildlife, some horticulture, stud cattle and dairy farming practises are still carried out, and furniture making (from local acacia woods) and rug weaving businesses creating further employment for the local people. There is a Conservation Centre which is worthwhile visiting.

The habitat is extremely diverse with open grassland interspersed with acacia forests, riverine woodland, rocky gorges and ravines, montane forest and the Lewa swampland. Mount Kenya provides a scenic backdrop to the south.

The history of the conservancy starts at the height of the rhino and elephant poaching days of the mid-1980’s when Anna Mertz asked the Craig family to set aside an area for use as a rhino sanctuary. Today, Lewa is home to some 34 black and 33 white rhino. In addition, it’s also home to around 25% of the world population of the rare Grevy’s zebra whilst other animals to be seen include elephant, reticulated giraffe, eland, lion, leopard, cheetah, the Burchell’s zebra, hartebeest, greater kudu, Grant’s gazelle, impala, bushbuck, dik dik, oryx and within the swamp area, the sitatunga. You might also be lucky to see the rarer gerenuk. After dark lookout for nocturnally-active species such as aardvark, caracal, bat-eared fox, honey badger, porcupine, galago, and white-tailed mongoose. The birdlife is superb with over 440 species recorded – from the ridges, it’s possible to photograph vultures and eagles soaring within a few feet.

The neighbouring Il Ngwesi Community Lands naturally have less game on them as there are several villages and the local Maasai people tend their goats and cattle, but this allows a different experience to unfold.

Activities
Walking is essentially unlimited, although each day will tend to involve a morning walk to reach the new camp (on average about 7 miles), which could take between 3 and 7 hours, depending on how much you see along the way, and then the afternoon is free to undertake a more relaxed walk in the local area around camp. The focus of each safari is learning about the ecosystems, wildlife, and local Maasai culture. Kitonga will enlighten you on the art of tracking and other bush skills. All equipment is moved by a train of camels.

Shorter trips (2 nights) are spent on the Lewa Conservancy itself, where the highest concentrations of game are found. Longer trips of 3 to 5 nights will also venture off the conservancy into the Il Ngwesi community lands, where game-viewing is a little less intense, but cultural experiences form a greater focus. Regardless of the number of days on trail, different habitats will be encountered, and the whole experience will be very exclusive and escapist. The scenery and views are also spectacular!

Seasons
Walking Wild operates from December to March, then again from June through to October.

CONSERVATION & COMMUNITY

In the 1980s the Craig family, owners of Walking Wild, set aside 5,000 acres of land for the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary where the rhinos thrived and the family turned the farm into a conservancy. Lewa operates one of the most successful rhino protection projects in Africa.

Walking Wild, together with other tourism ventures on the Lewa Conservancy, support the Lewa schools health care projects and conservation efforts together. Between Lewa and Borana they assist in community development through Conservation Education Programmes, financial support for many schools, funding teaching salaries and student bursaries as well as the building classrooms and accommodation, digging boreholes and fitting water tanks. They provide access to healthcare, youth empowerment, assist women in small businesses, provide pipelines for clean water projects and support pastoral livelihoods amongst many other initiatives.

In 2014 the fence separating the Lewa and neighbouring Borana Conservancy was removed, enabling both conservancies, committed to sustainable conservation, to protect the species on their land.