With the excavation complete a final few days of survey were conducted in the Ileret area before moving everyone back to Koobi Fora to set up the camp there to enable it to run during the rains and to provide a base from which to do all the wet sieving. Often the older men from Ileret wander past camp and sometimes rest upon their echelons or head rest in the shade of a small thorn tree. The echelon is carved to fit comfortably behind the head or even as a support for the back if you prefer to sit.
The Ileret camp came down fast and was loaded into the truck. The sediment from the sieves was left in the campsite for collection later in the week.

Ken Garrett from the National Geographic flew to camp as he needed to take some pictures for an upcoming piece in the magazine and so we spent two days with him helping him get the pictures. Unfortunately he had lost his luggage and so arrived in the field in his boots, long pants and long sleeved shirt. It was not the attire to lug heavy camera equipment across steep pebble covered slopes in but he managed.
Once the camp was up at Koobi Fora the field crew went back out to search for more fossils along the Koobi Fora ridge and Meave and myself managed to get some collecting done too. A porcupine was spotted on the way out to the sites one morning. They are nocturnal animals and so we do not often see them although it is quite common to find their quills on the ground in the gulleys of the exposures.

The good news is that the livestock have been moved north this last week with the help of an additional vehicle and team of rangers sent in from another station to the south. It will hopefully last until the rains come in April and if there is good rain to the north this will alleviate the pressure on the park.