Naivasha
Kenya
Image Story: This is an interesting place.
Karen Blixen, the renowned Danish writer whose exploits were highlighted in the movie 'Out of Africa', is still a big name here.
Her former property is obscured by trees, on the high ground on the right of this frame.
She was writing during WW1 to 1931, when it was far more challenging to travel internationally, especially as a woman.
She is still revered by Kenyans, they say for her love of the people, the landscape, the wild animals and everything about the bush.
This area used to be a flourishing forest. Now, there is a strange, still, almost apocalyptic feel about the place.
It is early morning and my guide James and I are paddling out on Lake Naivasha - our 3rd day at the Lake.
Low mist is hanging in the air diffusing much of the morning light. And into the misty distance, dead grey ghost-like tree-trunks reach up out of the water.
They are all that remain of a once thriving forest, before the waters started rising unexpectedly.
I am here to observe the effects of the rising water on the local forests, fauna and flora as well as human habitation.
These trees are yellow-barked
Acacia Xanthophlea commonly called the 'yellow fever' trees.
Since 2011 the water level of the Lake has been rising. Then in 2018 the water held for a period at a constant level.
With climatic changes, forest eco systems such as this one, have been devastated - wildlife has had to adapt and whole villages have had to relocate, clearing more bush for their crops, in order to survive.
Then in 2020 the waters started rising further.
As for the homestead of Karen Blixen - it used to be reachable via a narrow bridge (directly in the middle of this frame) but is now fully submerged and the island is reachable only by boat.
By all accounts, she would have cared little for the long-term maintenance of the farmstead but for the fact tourism provides funds for the local people there. She would have been much more concerned with the forest, the bush and everything and everyone in it.
