An intrepid team of pub staff from Oxfordshire are helping to save the Maasai Mara in Kenya, as Jaine Blackman finds out

As works outings go, a week in Kenya is fairly special but it wasn’t all fun and games for the dozen-strong team from Oxfordshire’s Peach Pubs company.

There was serious mission behind their trip - to help save the frontiers of the Maasai Mara Reserve, one of the natural wonders of the world.

Throughout 2013 the 400-strong Peach team was aware that if they did something extraordinary they were in with a chance of being on a plane to Nairobi.

Serena Toh, deputy manager at The Thatch in Thame was the first to book her place, winning a Peach Mastermind contest to find the person with the best knowledge of the company’s food and drink and our service standards.

Others were nominated throughout the year for acts above and beyond and just after Christmas the lucky names were picked out of a hat to make up the team of twelve intrepid explorers.

Oxfordshire participants were Peach co-founders Jo Eames and her husband Hamish Stoddart, of Deddington; Owain Llwyd Jones, manager of The Fishes pub, North Hinksey; Evelin Rae, manager of The Thatch pub, Thame; and Thomas Downham, works for Peach in marketing at their North Aston base, with the rest of the team coming from posts outside the county.

“For most it would be their first experience of Africa. Meeting pre-dawn on a dank January day at Oxford services, some were swathed head-to-toe in khaki. Others carried gallons of insect-repellent and Imodium. I half-expected someone to be dragging a collapsible canoe,” said Jo Eames.

Her husband Hamish Stoddart has a passion for Kenya.

“He’s visited regularly for the last twenty-five years and for the past few years has been helping establish a conservancy on the northern edge of the Maasai Mara eco-system, which is under huge pressure from the rapid growth of development and human population,” she said.

And it was Hamish who paid for the aid trip.

The aim was to present the Enonkishu Conservancy with a cheque for 1 million Kenyan shillings (about £7,000) - raised by Peach Pubs - and to plant as many as possible of the 20,000 indigenous tree seedlings that that money will fund.

Here’s Jo’s account of the trip: “In two long, hot sessions of digging, planting and watering we managed to plant the first thousand trees on the bank of the Mara River.

“Our money will also pay for the trees to be watered until they’re established and for a sturdy fence behind our new forest, to keep the hippos which come up from the river to graze from blundering into the villagers’ fields beyond.

“We were lucky enough to be staying in an idyllic spot on the other side of the river, at a small bush home called The House in The Wild.

“On the first night, I was woken by heavy footsteps outside our tented room, and the sound of something munching at the thatched roof. In the morning I found the distinctive three-toed print of hippo hooves tracking up the steep bank from the river to our patio.

“Having once been charged by a hippo, I was very glad we’d remembered to zip up the tent.

“Our week was a kaleidoscope of fantastic experiences, many of them of the sort money just can’t buy.

“As well as working alongside the locals to plant our trees, we received a visit from the Maasai elders in traditional dress who danced for us to say thanks for our contribution.

“We also climbed a tall hill with a world’s view of the Mara and slept there under the stars, with just a fire and one watchman to keep away the lions and buffalo.

“Driving through the conservancy we saw rhinos, cheetah, giraffes, elephant and herds of the gazelle and wildebeest. Most unique of all we went to a Maasai cattle market where we were told we were the first group of Europeans they had seen since 1960.

“We rounded the week off with a visit to Emartischool, where we played the Conservancy staff at football.

“It was clear from the off that the Kenyans had the edge in terms of speed and fitness, but they generously lent us some of their best players and we only lost 3-2. Off to the side, Owain Jones from The Fishes in North Hinksey had brought out a rugby ball and was teaching the other beautiful game.”

“Our two hired LandRovers just about made it back to Nairobi in one piece and, miraculously, so did we.

“Apart from blisters and a mild case of sunstroke we had come through the whole experience not only unscathed but with unforgettable memories of a sublimely beautiful place and a strong sense that we want to do even more to help preserve it.

“We had a wonderful, unforgettable time on our trip to Kenya. But what struck me most was the pace of change.

“One day, when they have secured the essentials of life – food, fuel, work, health, education – the Kenyans will be able to afford to care more about their unique natural heritage. “Sadly, there’s a great risk that on that day it will already have been damaged beyond repair.

“There is a very small window of opportunity still open to secure at least some of that heritage.”

To find out more about the Mara conservancies, and Enonkishu in particular, go to www.thelastlineofdefence.com