Sarova Taita Hills Game Lodge. PHOTO | DAVID HERBLING
What are the odds of having a game park and a World War I site at the same place? Ensconced in the Taita Hills, the Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary is a 28,000-acre private conservancy teeming with game and also happens to be the theatre of the First World War in East Africa.
Adjacent to the Tsavo National Park, this destination is offering a rare experience that can aptly be dubbed ‘World War I Safari.’
Having been to the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri; I couldn’t resist an offer to visit Taita to learn some history while on safari.
The scars left by the fighting that raged between August 1914 and March 1916 are still visible today, and interestingly, are being healed by the sanctuary that is teeming with wildlife.
The sanctuary has two lodges; the Sarova Salt Lick Game Lodge and the Sarova Taita Hills Game Lodge.
We left Nairobi at about 8am for Voi town and then turned to the Mwatate Road and reached Salt Lick at about 5pm.
Game drive
What makes this facility enchanting is that the reception, dining area, as well as rooms overlook a waterhole, which draws the elephants to come drink the salty bore hole water. This is perhaps the closest anyone can safely come close to the jumbos. You can almost touch them.
The lodge has 96 rooms, all elevated on stilts and built across two levels. From atop the lodge, one gets a clear view of the vast Tsavo plains.
The next day, we had a morning game drive around the expansive sanctuary, which offers an abundance of wildlife from lions, elephants, buffalos, giraffes, zebras, impalas, gazelles, kudus, dik-diks, monkeys and ostrich. We missed out on the leopard and the park doesn’t host any rhinoceros.
In the afternoon, we headed out in search of WWI sites within the sanctuary. The war safari would perhaps never have been a reality were it not for James Wilson, a former manager at the Sarova Taita Hills Game Lodge.
James went on to author a book: ‘‘Guerillas of Tsavo: The East African Campaign of the Great War in British East Africa 1914-1916.’’
The book is a product of Wilson’s experiences as an apprentice under the late John Alexander, a professional hunter and safari guide.
“While out with hunting parties, we would often find quantities of spent cartridges, ammunition cases and shrapnel having stumbled upon trenches and the remains of lava rock revetments,” he says in the book’s introduction.
Some of the WWI collections are now stored in a little museum located at the Sarova Taita Hills Game Lodge. They include coins, spent cartridges, whiskey bottles, and artillery. Some of the artefacts at this hotel include a 1914 Princess Mary Gift Fund box, which was sent as a Christmas present to those serving the Empire that year.
The boxes contained a variety of items such as tobacco and chocolate, and was donated to Sarova Taita Hills Game Lodge by a visiting tourist who recounted that their family member had served in East Africa during WWI.
There is also a HMS Pegasus plaque from the British carrier which was sank during the Battle of Zanzibar with the German Königsberg battleship. A tourist visiting the hotel once offered Sh20 million to buy the HMS Pegasus artefact, but Sarova declined the offer.
Taita Taveta County was the site that pitted the Germans, who then controlled Tanganyika, against British forces who ruled Kenya, Uganda and Somaliland.
Let’s take a look at some of the WWI battlefields within the sanctuary:
Mile 27 along the Voi – Taveta rail line
This was a major target for the German forces, known as Schutztruppe. They wanted to blow up this bridge located 27 miles from Voi as a strategy to cut supplies for the British troops. However, they never managed to bring down the bridge as the British guarded it jealously.
But the Germans managed to frequently disrupt operations on this line.
Mashoti Fort
Built by the Loyal North Lancashire regiment in late 1915, the Mashoti Fort consists of trenches and typical regulation design British fort laid out according to the ‘book’. Situated in a ridge, the fort is eroded today but clearly visible and easily accessible. The name ‘Mashoti’ is believed to be a corruption of “more shots” as was ordered by the commander.
Tsavo Railway Station
Famous as the ‘Man Eaters of Tsavo Railway Station,’ it was built in late 1898. It is located next to Mile 27 Bridge, a target that the Germans were continually trying to reach in an effort to blow it up. It was however, too heavily defended
Mahoo Hill
Located outside the sanctuary, this is a Church Missionary Society mission post established in 1890 just outside Taveta.
It was occupied by the Germans and subsequently fortified by them and became their eastern command military headquarters.
Maktau
A dusty sleepy little village today, half way between Voi and Taveta but in early 1916 it accommodated over 20,000 British Empire troops and claims the first airfield in East Africa.
