Have you ever taught of how living on trees will be? What about the experience of jumping from one tree to the other? I presume we need to give credit to the monkeys and others who live on trees.
One sultry afternoon after a rest from having gone through a stressful registration and orientation on the University of Cape Coast campuses the previous day, sightseeing was next. I and my colleagues decided to visit some notable places in the school's hinterland and Kakum National Park
Kakum National Park is one of the more reachable parks in Ghana. It's just a short distance from Cape Coast or Elmina with between half an hour(30mins) and an hour drive depending on how good your car or bus driver is at avoiding toll checkpoints and Police takings).
The park entrance is a rather innocuous looking hut with another toll gate attached to it which anyone who visits the park cannot be avoid. On our first visit, it was 6000 Cedi to enter and Ghs1.00 on our second visit, which is really not worth mentioning compared to the costs of a guided land or canopy tour hike.
Pragmatically, the entrance fee gets you access to the museum, the gift shop and the restaurant and that's about it. Everything besides that comes with further expense although I seriously doubt if visitors show up at Kakum not intending to do the canopy walk (we're not sure if you get your money back if you flee once you actually see the canopy walk).
Other than a horde of scurrying lizards, there is no wildlife around the visitor center. The museum meets worldwide national park standards and gives one something to do while waiting for the next canopy tour. This picture incidentally is of the canopy anchoring system connected to ironwood and ebony trees. Having made good use of the museum and waited for the next tour, an official is appointed to lead the group to the rainforest and give you brief history about the place and each one of us were given numbers to place on our necks.
According to him, Kakum National Park is a 375 square km national park located in the Central Region of Ghana. The 350 square kilometer park was first established in 1960. It is located 30km north of Cape Coast and Elmina near the small town of Abrafo and is easily accessible by taxis from the city center, and through organized tour buses. The entire area is covered with tropical rainforest. It contains rare animals, including the endangered Mona-meerkat, as well as pygmy elephants, forest buffalo, civet cats, a wide array of birds, and over 500 species of butterflies.
It has a long series of hanging bridges at the forest canopy level known as the "Canopy Walkway." At 40 m (130 ft) height, the visitor can approach the plants and animals from a vantage point that would otherwise be inaccessible to people.
The canopy walkway, which was built by two Canadians from the city of Vancouver, is a series of seven (7) rope bridges strung between assorted species of very sturdy trees and runs over a length of 330 m (1,080 ft). It is secured by a series of nets and wires for safety purposes. The valley drops away as you walk out along it so at the midpoint it's really quite far to the forest floor, not that you can see it very often through all the foliage.
An additional viewing platform that was under construction during my first trip to allow visitors to climb into the canopy to do so without mastering all the courage in the world (so if you can’t stand the heat after the first bridge, you can choose three (3) instead of the normal seven)
Quite a number of people suffer a variety of bad reactions to it. Everyone in my groups completed it, although several of them shed tears as if they were bereaved and mourning their two parents. The canopy tour, while appealing, is a very short loop.
Another exciting feature of Kakum is that, you can take all the pictures you want with no spiritual, legal or cultural taboos
Once you've finished the canopy tour and optionally the ground hike there's not much to do except return to Cape Coast.
My tour to the Kakum National Park has done me better than harm. It gave me an eye opening of the wonders of nature.