Sri Lanka: National Park Closures

  I can't see any elephants anywhere because there's something stuck to the windscreen - photo Stuart Butler

Over the weekend of August 11th-13th all national parks in Sri Lanka will be closed to visitors as the island conducts its first ever countrywide elephant census. Prior to this cenusus nobody has ever really had anything more than a hazy idea about the number of elephants found in Sri Lanka. If you want to help out on the census the excellent Ecotours Sri Lanka are offering five volunteers the chance to get involved. See http://www.srilankaecotourism.com/ for more.

If you're visiting Sri Lanka in the next few weeks remember that many of the parks are in fact closed anyway due to the monsoon making the dirt roads in the parks unuseable.

Back in Kenya

                                                         Photo: Tanzanian secret spot

I've just arrived back in Kenya at the start of a a couple of months research for the next edition of the Lonely Planet Kenya guide. For this edition I'll be checking out the beaches (and fruit juices!) of the Kenyan coastline and then returning to my old stomping grounds in northern Kenya. I flew into Mombasa today from Nairobi and have just enjoyed a very tasty curry at the excellent (though slightly pricey) Shehani Restaurant in the city centre. I'll update this blog frequently whilst I'm away with news and views of how things have changed on the Kenyan coast since the last edition.

A few years ago I did a magazine surf trip to the Tanzanian coast where we scored unexpectedly fantastic waves. I'm carting a board around with me at the moment (so if you see someone struggling around with a board and far too much baggage come and say hi!) in the hope of getting a few waves similar waves in Kenya somewhere. I'd also love to meet up with some of the local or expat surfers in Kenya if any of you happen to read this!