Best of Africa Tours and Safaris Limited |Akagera National Park

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Arabuko Sokoke was proclaimed a Crown Forest and gazetted in 1943. Part of the forest was gazetted as a strict nature reserve in the late 1960s. The reserve lies a few kilometers inland, between the towns of Kilifi and Malindi, 110 km north of Mombasa. It is the largest existing fragment of the tropical forests that covered much of the East African coast and is an important habitat for endemic/endangered birds, insects and mammal species.
Location:
Coastal Strip, Kilifi District, covering 6 km2.
Climate:
Average annual rainfall ranges from 900mm in the dry and scrubby northwest to 1100mm in the east.

HOW TO GET THERE
Roads:
Access through Mombasa, Tarmac road - 75 km.
Access through Malindi
Airstrips:
Malindi and Mombasa Airports.

MAJOR ATTRACTIONS
Endemic Bird species, Butterflies, Remnant coastal forest.
FACILITIES (Hotels Near the Park)
Turtle Bay Beach Club; Temple Point Village; Ocean Sports; Hemingways; Blue Bay Village; Barracuda Inn; Mrs Simpsons.
ACTIVITIES
Bird Watching; Walking Trails.

WILDLIFE
Reptiles/Fishes:
Sand Lizard, Day Geulo, Twig Snake, Boomslang, Green Mamba, Rock Python, Forest Cobra, Sand Snake.
Insects/Arthropods:
Six species of butterflies, Crickets, Grasshoppers, Beetles Strychnos.
Major Birds:
Akalat, East Coast; Babbler, Scaly; Barbet, Green; Bush Shrike, Four-coloured; Eagle, Southern Banded Harrier; Flycatcher, Little Yellow; Nicator; Pipit, Sokoke; Pitta, African; Shrike, Chestnut-fronted; Shrike, Retz's Red-billed; Shrike, Zanzibar Puff-back; Spinetail, Boehm's; Spinetail, Mottled-throated; Sunbird, Amani; Sunbird, Plain-backed; Thrush, Spotted Ground; Tinkerbird, Green; Turaco, Fischer's; Weaver, Clarke's; Woodpecker, Golden-tailed.

COMMON VEGETATION
The Arabuko Sokoke Forest is considered to be one of the most important sites for nature conservation in East Africa. It is the last large remnant of lowland coastal tropical forests with 11 threatened woody plants. The reserve is comprised of several distinct forest types. Mixed forest in the east, on grey sands. This habitat is relatively dense with a diversity of tree species. Characteristic trees include Combretum schumannii, Drypetes reticulata, Afzelia quanzensis, Dialium oreintale, Humenaea verrucosa and Manilkara sansibarensis. Brachystegia woodland runs in a strip through the approximate center of the forest on white, very infertile soil. This relatively open habitat is dominated by Brachystegia spiciformis.

In the south-west and north-east, on red magarini sands is cynometra forest and thicket, dominated by Cynometra webberi with Manilkara sulcata, oldfieldia somalensis and Brachylaena huillensis with mature trees approaching 15m height and a dense understorey. There are two areas of relatively tall cynometra forest with a canoppy height of up to 20m.

The dry north western part of the reserve is covered by a low dense and often almost impenetrable cynometra thicket with vegetation mainly comprising a thick shrub and sapling tangle from 3m to 6m tall with emergent trees (10m) of Brachylaena hutchinsii (threatened in Kenya); and white soil Cynometra-Afzelia forest, which borders the Cynometra thicket.