Wild Camel Protection Foundation Camel saviour John's incredible journey - The Kent Messenger 20/09/02

Explorer John Hare is writing a book about an incredible journey by camel across the Sahara Desert which he completed earlier this year. Stephen Hedges talks to him about the arduous trip and why he undertook it.

A N EPIC camel trek across the hostile Sahara by explorer John Hare is to be the subject of a book and a major article in National Geographic magazine.
Mr Hare, 65, swapped his home in Benenden, in the verdant Weald countryside, for the arid wastes of the Sahara when he led an expedition nearly 1,500 miles from Lake Chad, Nigeria, to Tripoli, in Libya, between last October and February.
It was the first time the journey had been made by a foreigner since the British explorer Sir Hanns Vischer first crossed the forbidding terrain, in the opposite direction, in 1906.
Mr Hare was inspired to make the journey after reading Vischer’s journal of his adventure, Across the Sahara.
Vischer was considered during his lifetime to be one of the world’s foremost explorers, but today little is remembered about him.

Great experience

One reason Mr Hare decided to make his journey was to bring Vischer’s name to public prominence again the other was to get publicity for his charity, The Wild Camel Protection Foundation.

Mr Hare, like Vischer before him, spent many years working in northern Nigeria. He was an administrator for the British Government before working for the United Nations’ Environment Programme, travelling to places such as Russia and Mongolia where he became interested in the camel.
Mr Hare was joined on the expedition by Kenyan Jasper Evans, an acknowledged camel expert; Chinese Professor Yuan Guoying, a professor of zoology with great experience of desert travel and working with camels; and Johnny Paterson, another with experience of desert
treks. A photographer for National Geographic magazine also accompanied them part of the way.
In addition there were 25 camels, some for riding and some for carrying baggage, and four Tuareg herdsmen as guides.
The caravan set out from Kukawa on October 26, tracing Vischer’s footsteps with the aid of old French colonial maps.
The three-and-a-half months’ trip covered 1,462 miles: about 17 miles a day.

Mr Hare said: “It was pretty tough country. The Sahara is not just one great blanket of sand as people seem to think. It is in fact a number of deserts, some of which have huge dunes and others which have great rocky outcrops.
They are punctuated with oases places where there is often, but not always, water.”

A bitterly cold north-easterly wind, particularly prevalent in Libya, forced Mr Hare to wear three sweaters, a Waistcoat, jacket and Barbour coat. However, morning and midday temperatures still soared well above 40C.
At night they plummeted. “I didn’t really appreciate that the desert in these winter months gets so cold at night,” he said, “It was down to minus four, which doesn’t sound a lot but it is if you are sleeping out in the open.”
The biggest problem was food for the camels. Mr Hare said: “Most people have heard that camels can go for a long time without water. However, if they are working they can’t go without food.
“They have to be fed every day, otherwise, like any other animal, they will pack up.
“We went through an area where there was no vegetation for 16 days and had to carry all our own grass.”

Great satisfaction

He added: “They are the most incredible animals. On this trip they took us over sand dunes that a four-wheel drive would not be able to go over.”

The caravan finally arrived in Tripoli on February 5.
After such a gruelling journey, what did Mr Hare think he had achieved? “I got great satisfaction out of doing the journey 100 years after it was first done,” he replied.

“It is like asking why climb a mountain? You do it to get to the top.”

• John Hare’s account of his journey, Shadows Across the Sahara, will be published by Constable and Robinson next spring. The article in National Geographic magazine is due to appear in December. John Hare will be giving a talk illustrated with slides, about his journey, at Benenden Village Hall, on Saturday, October 5, at 7pm. Tickets are £5 at the door and include a ploughman’s supper.

What made him start the charity

JOHN Hare established The Wild Camel Protection Foundation, a UK-based charitable trust, in 1997.
His interest in camels began during his time working in Nigeria. However, it was not until he made a number of expeditions to the Chinese Gobi desert in the 1990s that the plight of the wild Bactrian camel attracted his attention.
This camel, which has two humps, is the ancestor of all domestic camels. It is now a highly endangered species with only about 900 left in the world.

In China the wild Bactrian camel manages to survive in the Gashun Gobi, one of the most hostile regions in the world. It was a nuclear test site area yet despite 45 atmospheric atomic tests, some stronger than Hiroshima, the camel still appears to be breeding naturally. Furthermore, it has the ability to drink salt water which no other camel in the world can tolerate.
Since the end of nuclear tests the wild Bactrian camel faces new threats: highly toxic illegal mining and hunting for a species which is now said to be more endangered than the giant panda.
In 1995, Mr Hare was first person in history to cross the Gashun Gobi from north to south.
Two years later he founded The Wild Camel Protection Foundation and together with the Chinese government it has established the 73,000 square kilometre Arjin Shan Lop Nur Nature Reserve to help protect the remaining herds.

Donations to help save the wild Bactrian camel should be sent to The Wild Camel Protection Foundation, School Farm, Benenden, Kent TN17 4EU.