ORPHAN TRAIL SAFARIS - HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Although my love affair with Kenya began in 2004 on my very first Wildlife Safari, my journey with The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust started in 2011 with a book called “Love, Life and Elephants; an African Love Story” by Daphne Sheldrick. Having always had a love for elephants, Daphne’s memoir completely captured my heart and ignited a passion within me that has since changed my life.
Serendipity
Shortly after reading Daphne’s memoirs, The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, based in Nairobi along with the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, set up their first overseas office which just happened to be opposite my regular place of work in a sleepy little town in Surrey, England…Serendipity! Within a few months I was volunteering with the small SWT team in their UK office helping with admin and assisting at fund raising events.
By this time, I had already gained my first two adopted foster elephants, Orwa & Lima Lima, and was desperate to get back out to Kenya and see the amazing work of the Trust first hand. I was intrigued by Daphne’s life and wanted to see all the places she spoke about in her book; the remote wilderness of the vast Tsavo East National Park, Voi where she and her husband, David Sheldrick, then Chief Warden of the National Park, first lived and, the coastal home of her Grandparents, Malindi.
I set to work researching & planning my safari to visit the SWT orphaned elephants. By now the SWT had recently built a rustic safari camp at their Ithumba Reintegration Unit to accommodate visiting supporters of the Trust who wished to meet their adopted foster elephants. But, the Ithumba Camp was extremely remote in the Northern territory of Tsavo East National Park, an untouched, pristine wilderness where no general tourists are permitted and the camp itself was and still is, run on a self-help basis (self-catering), so I needed to find a Safari Guide and 4 x 4 vehicle to escort my husband and I to the camp.
Ithumba Camp and Finding Lynne Leakey
After trawling the internet without much success, due to Kenyan Safari Operators not yet being familiar with the SWT Ithumba Camp. I happened, by luck, to fall upon the contact details of a woman called Lynne Leakey, unbeknown to me, she was a part of the ‘Leakey Dynasty’; a prominent British-Kenyan family of paleoanthropologists and archaeologists. Louis Leakey having discovered that humans evolved in Africa ‘The Cradle of mankind’, his son Richard Leakey, a Conservationist, Politician & Director of the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS). Following some correspondence with Lynne, an American/Kenyan Naturalist Guide & friend of Daphne Sheldrick, she invited me & my husband to join a small group of Americans she was escorting on an Ithumba Safari later that year…and so my journey begun. During that trip we visited all the SWT reintegration units at that time, being the Nairobi Elephant Orphanage, Ithumba Camp & the Voi reintegration unit along with Lynne and her guests, and travelled down through Tsavo East National Park, just like Daphne as a child used to do with her family, we even spent some time in the coastal town of Malindi.
How Orphan Trail Safaris was founded
Lynne & I just hit it off and we became good friends, she introduced me to Daphne, who I had the pleasure of meeting several times, but sadly & very unexpectedly Lynne passed away in September 2014.
Sometime later, having often been asked by SWT supporters and foster parents at fundraisers “how could they travel to Kenya to visit their own adopted orphaned elephants” I realised Lynne’s dusty safari boots needed filling; there really wasn’t anyone at that time providing small-group Safaris to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Having that special time with Lynne and numerous trips to the SWT’s camps (which had now expanded to 3 units) I knew this was something I could, and should do; offer small-group safaris, a very unique, personal experience of up-close time with orphaned, ex-orphan and wild elephant herds, to like-minded SWT supporters from around the globe. I approached the well-established Nairobi ground handler Lynne used to freelance with and they were really pleased to come on board with me. It didn’t take me very long to find my first group of eager clients in 2016 and my Orphan Trail Safaris journey began. My OTS ethos is to enable other passionate elephant supporters around the globe to share a common interest and help their dreams come true, I therefore made a decision to operate OTS on a not-for-profit basis.
After many years of wildlife safaris, time spent in the field with Elephant Researchers and gaining a solid understanding of elephant behaviour, I now love sharing my experiences, knowledge, and stories with my Orphan Trail Safaris guests, some of who have now become my good friends.
Thank you for your interest and reading my story. For further information on supporting orphaned elephants visit Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.