#087 Akagera Rising

Thirteen years ago, I visited Akagera National Park, in Rwanda. I wrote at the time it was already a conservation success story. My time at Akagera was a bonus excursion I'd fitted in as part of a journey for a group who's primary aims were cultural engagement and contribution to NGO projects. 

To be honest, if safari had been the sole focus we would have planned a completely different itinerary. But I'm so glad we didn't as Akagera has given us a powerful story.

Link my 2012 expedition report: Rwanda Memories

Akagera was decimated during the 1994 genocide as, from their refuge across the border in Tanzania, the RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) launched its counter attack maneuvers against the Interahamwe militia. Soldiers and hungry civilians used the park as a larder. Poaching was rife, leaving the animal population shot out.

My memories of Akagera were ones of a National Park in the early stages of rehabilitation. That is not to say a considerable amount of work and investment had not already been made into security and infrastructure. These things take time and progress rebuilding the trophic pyramid has to be made from the ground upwards. First securing the habitat to allow successful repopulation.

We had some excellent viewings of odd and even toed ungulates. In particular, watching a pair of the rare swamp dwelling Sitatunga splash across reedbeds was a treat: Perhaps one which was lost on the youth group I was guiding at the time, who were more interested in the elephant. More of those later.

Also the birding was a joy, with wonderful splashes of colour from Lilac-breasted roller. We also kept a keen eye open for Shoebill stork which was known to nest in the wetland areas. But this one-of-a-kind species, which shares characteristics with stork and heron, remained elusive. 

My only Shoebill 'sighting' has been a historic taxidermy specimen in Oxford Natural History Museum, which enabled closer study of the distinctive bill, specialised to grab large prey, including lungfish, tilapia, eels, and snakes. It even snacks on baby crocodiles and Nile monitor lizards. I hope one day to be able to see and appreciate a live Shoebill in the wild.

During the intervening years, there have been several high profile translocation projects, reintroducing species, including lions from South Africa in 2015 as well as 18 black rhinos from South Africa in 2017, along with a further five from zoos in Europe in 2019

In 2021, thirty White rhino were introduced in the largest ever single translocation.

Link to the full feature: https://www.africanparks.org/rwanda-welcomes-30-white-rhinos-largest-ever-single-translocation

Akagera has risen to fulfil it's potential that was so evident on my visit all those years ago. It is now a Big 5 destination with thriving populations of lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and Cape buffalo. No doubt these area an ideal gateway attraction, but of course safari is about so much more. 

Link to the Big 5 in Akagera: https://www.akageranationalparkrwanda.org/big-5-in-akagera/

There is also a superb diversity of other species, including zebra, giraffe, crocodile, hippo, hyena and many antelope. 

Primates are well represented with olive baboon, silver monkey, vervet monkey and blue monkey.

Twitchers will not be disappointed either. Home to over 500 species, Akagera offers superb birding.

Recently, friends from Legends Tracking spent a few days on safari in Akagera and stayed in the Mantis Lodge, the only luxury hotel within the park. I listened intently to Tim, Fre and their two girls impressions and their take away highlights from their trip. It was lovely to hear how many more animals there were. Their evident enjoyment was a special trip down memory lane for me too.

Tim very kindly shared the safari pictures taken by his daughter. I'm delighted to show a handful of these in this blog, with credits.

Tim and family saw the beautiful Crowned Crane in Akagera.

For folks who are familiar with Ranger Ultras Trail Running, our 'Medals For Wildlife' scheme offers those participants who don't collect or retain their race medals, the opportunity to hand back their race medal (after a finishing photo celebration). We then recycle the race medals to the next event. At the end of each trail running year we add up the total and donate £3 for each medal's value to Tusk Trust. 

Medals For Wildlife: https://rangerultras.co.uk/index.php/medals-for-wildlife/

One of the conservation projects supported by Tusk Trust in Rwanda is the to reverse decline of the endangered Crowned Crane, threatened by habitat loss and poaching. The project locus is in the Rugezi Marsh, one of the headwaters of the Nile.

Link to the full feature: https://tusk.org/projects/rwanda-wildlife-conservation-association/

Back to Akagera: I never stayed at the Mantis Lodge, but I did take my group there for refreshing afternoon drinks before our drive back to the NGO project base. I recall the lodge being noticeably under occupied, indeed the opposite of the lodges I had overnighted at in Tanzania and Kenya.

I asked Tim & Fre how their stay went at Mantis. There were more guests there and they enjoyed the venue, but it was still quiet. This seems a pity as Akagera is now resurgent in it's quest to become a premiere wildlife viewing destination. 

Link to Mantis Akagera: https://www.mantiscollection.com/hotel/akagera-national-park-mantis-eco-lodge/

It's Big 5 status and affordable game drive fees are absolutely a massive enticement, especially so with the escalating prices and over tourism in other African national parks.
Akagera should be at the top of the wish list for anyone seeking an uncrowded safari with world class game viewing.

Thirteen yeas ago, I wrote, Akagera was a national park in ascendancy. 
Today it has truly arrived. Best get there soon.

Stu Westfield
Ranger Expeditions & Ranger Ultras Trail Running

*****

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#086 A Night At The Fort

Three kilometers distant, along a gated a private road, at the end of a tidal causeway is a costal fort. The canon situated there to defend the western end of the Menai Strait from American privateers approaching from the Irish Sea.

Constructed in 1775, Fort Belan is the only example of a purpose built fort of the American Revolution on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The fort was commissioned by Thomas Wynn, the then MP for Caernarfonshire (later to become Lord Newborough) due to concern for the vulnerability of Britain's coastline to attack. Although no shots were ever fired in battle and no further forts of its type were built in this period.

Victorian Ordnance Survey 1888-1913

A resurgence in British coastal fortification came 30 years later. In response to the threat of invasion by Emperor Napoleon I, a chain of Marello Towers were built to defend the Cinque Ports along the Sussex and Kent Coast. 

However, fort building reached it's zenith in the 1860's and 70's in an arms race prompted by Louis Napoleon. Resulting in the monumental Palmerston Forts and vaulted roof emplacements housing huge breach loading guns. 

The barrack block wings to the rear of Fort Belan are now used as holiday lets. These remain authentic with rustic charm and a unique experience. For folks who demand high end luxury, this is not the venue for you. When we stayed, there was nobody else renting the other units. Having the place to ourselves was wonderfully atmospheric.

Around the fort are many well preserved original and period features. Such as the powder and ammunition stores and the later watchtower built in the 1890's.

Adjacent to the fort, a dock was added later with workshops, stores and cranes. During WW2 the fort was back in military use as the base for the Home Guard and two rescue launches.

Fort Belan is a privately owned property. The upkeep cost of such a site of historic importance is huge and revenues from the holiday lets do help with this. 

Gorse

Directly outside of the fort is a pebbly shore. Swimming is not recommended due to the strong currents. 

Fairy foxglove

For nature lovers, there are wild flowers growing in abundance and on the edges of the protected sand dunes which form the peninsular.

Red valerian

Common vetch

Bird's-foot-trefoil

Herb robert (maritimum)

Sea campion

Annual bugloss

Lesser spotted dogfish, desiccated by the sea wind,
 with an unbirthed egg case "mermaid's purse"

Rafa on patrol

Smoked treats, bought from nearby Anglessey

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#085 Pitt Rivers & The Ashmolean

The Pitt Rivers Museum is trove of ethnographic and cultural artefacts from around the world, encompassing a complete timeline of human existence. It has long been on my wish list of places for a unhurried visit. 

Pitt Rivers Museum

With a whole day for myself, I hopped on the very early train and arrived at Oxford shortly after the city museum opening times. There were several items within the diverse collections in which I was particularly interested and wanted to see. So I knew that I was in for a treat, in ways both expected and new to me. 

Nestled behind the Oxford University Museum Of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers houses some half a million objects. But instead of grouping artefacts conventionally in time lines or geographic regions, items are exhibited by type and usage. This allows the viewer to understand and compare different human responses to problem solving and themed creativity. 

Take for example, the item generically described as a bullroarer. This object has been used as a toy, bird scarer and method of communication. Items of this type have been created in India, Australasia, North America, Europe, West and South Africa. All the bullroarers can be viewed together in one case.

West African bullroarers

The bullroarer's basic form is fashioned from a length of wood, approximating a oval or rectangle, with its long edges carved into an aero foil section. There are variations such as serrated edges and in decoration on the larger surfaces. A multiple braid string is tied to one end. To make the bullroarer 'sing' the string is twisted so that it winds up. Then, holding one end of the string, the bullroarer is spun in free space. As the string unwinds, the aero foil creates a whooping sound akin to that made by a helicopter rotor blade. A skilled bullroarer user can vary the rate of spinning to alter the frequency and pulsing of the sound.

Papua New Guinea bullroarer

I have created bullroarers in the past. One of my projects for this year is to revisit this topic to make a couple of bullroarers with ethnographic style decoration inspired the tribes of Papua New Guinea.

Whistling arrows

Staying with noise generators, I learned about whistling arrows. Where an arrow tip was fitted with a hollow device shaped like seed pod, with holes drilled into the pod. When the arrow is fired, the wind passes through the holes creating sound. The presence of a sharp point indicates whether there is intent of hitting an aimed for target or purely ceremony in use. Relatively simple to create, I thought I might try out making a whistling arrow to hear the actual sound they create.

Fire by friction bow drill, Ceylon

Of particular interest with respect to bushcraft are methods of fire by friction. There is a wide diversity of fire making kits on display, including hand drill, thong drill, bow drill, plough and fire saw.

Mbecheso carpenter's pump drill
Tanganyika, East Africa

In a different section, a carpenters tool from Tanganyika (now Tanzania) caught my eye. This used a similar principle to the bow drill. Instead of wood-to-wood friction, the end of the shaft was fitted with a hard metal tip used to bore fine diameter holes.

There is ongoing discussion, not limited to controversy, as to how artefacts predominantly kept in the museums of the wealthiest northern hemisphere countries came to be in their current locations. Certainly, there are far too many objects acquired by duplicity, treachery and looting during the colonial era. Indeed, lets not dress this up in fine words, this period is filled with examples of theft of archaeological and cultural artefacts from indigenous nations.

'Senegalese academic and writer Felwine Sarr and French art historian Benedicte Savoy, estimated that a colossal 90 per cent of Africa's cultural heritage is in the West' - An African History Of Africa, author Zeinab Badawe

Court Art Of Benin

If most icons of cultural identity are sitting on the shelves of European and North American collections is it no wonder that the peoples of today's Africa have difficulty in connecting with their cultural roots and pre-colonial identities? When asked about their history, many Africans begin their story at the point of the arrival of white people. Not the rich tapestry which existed for thousands of years before the continent was carved up into the commercial boundaries of empire, which arbitrarily cut through cultural groups and trading relationships.

Objects used in lost wax casting, Nigeria

'Exploitation far outweighed economic development and that on balance the colonial era was a period of economic growth without development, an era of lost opportunities for the peoples of Africa' - An African History Of Africa, author Zeinab Badawe on UNESCO's GHA findings.

I've previously written about the Benin Bronzes. Since then, a number of European institutions have begun the process of returning items to their cultural home in southern Nigeria. I think this the morally correct and decent course of action. However, I would still like to see some examples of the Bronzes remain on display within the United Kingdom for them to be appreciated by all who cannot make the journey to Nigeria. There are sufficient numbers of the bronzes for this to happen while also going some way to representatively make right the wrongs of the past through restitution.

The Benin Bronzes are without doubt objects of global human importance. If some of the bronzes were to remain on loan, then there should be reciprocity of archeological items of great significance originating in Europe. The point being that African people should be included in the benefits of globalisation and their countries' resources not simply bled dry by external trading blocs and poor domestic governance. 

In the case of the Benin Bronzes there is also a wonderful opportunity for European academic institutions to move with the times, by commissioning and displaying the talents of the modern Guild Of Bronze Casters alongside loaned historical artefacts.

The Hunt In The Forest, Paulo Uccello

After a late lunch, I had time to visit the Ashmolean museum. I particularly wanted to see a painting by Paulo Uccello, The Hunt In the Forest. Painted around 1465 to 1470, it's not the subject itself which interested me, rather that Uccello is considered one of the founding fathers of perspective.

Prior to Uccello, life subjects in art appeared as flat as the board on which they were painted, trapped in two dimensions. His work gave the first sense of depth and life. Giorgio Vasari in his Lives Of The Artists (part 2, published in 1550), gave Uccello a slightly two handed critique saying he spent too much time engrossed in the problems and precision of draftsmanship. However, as with much renaissance art, The Hunt In The Forest is imbued with allegory and symbolism which would have pleased the client for whom it was painted.

John Ruskin, John Everett Millais

I had few other expectations of the paintings on display. One did catch my eye though. John Ruskin by John Everett Millais, depicted beside the cascading water of Glenfinlas burn in 1854, is exquisite in its natural realism and detail.

It's composition remind me of the Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog (1818) by Casper David Friedrich. The Wanderer painting is an old favourite as well as an early exposition of the explorer's Man Leg!

For a time in the first half of the 20th Century, Pre-Raphaelite works went out of fashion and were even scorned. But after looking at the modern art on the upper floor of the Ashmolean, I know which style I prefer. 

Model showing baking, brewing and butchering activities.
Beni Hasan, Middle Kingdom

I concluded my day with a walk around the Egyptology rooms. On display were several excellent models of everyday life which would have been among a tomb's funerary goods. And a few items from the ever fascinating Amarna heresy. 

Queen Nefertiti worshiping the sun god Aten
limestone relief, XVIII Dynasty (c1540-1292 BC)

I had a great day in Oxford. The trip had given me lots of inspiration and ideas for new projects at The Peak Centre and enhancements for my Ranger Expeditions guided walks. I boarded the train back home to the Peak District.

Outside Taharqa's shrine. The largest intact Egyptian building in the UK
Once part of a temple at Kwa in Susan, it was built on the orders of
Taharqa who was Pharaoh from 690-664 BC

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