As the last recruit into the British Colonial Administration in Northern Nigeria when the country was on the brink of independence, John Hare was dispatched to serve in some of the remotest areas in the North. Having spent two years among the truculent tribes in Tangale-Waja and been a Provincial Marshall during the colourful independence durbar, he was posted to an area in Adamawa Province, which had been part of the original German Cameroons, until it was divided between France and Great Britain after the Great War and administered as part of the French Cameroons and Nigeria. Unexpectedly, this territory, which was administered under a United Nations mandate, voted in a plebiscite to remain a colony under the British. John Hare explains the tribal politics behind this vote and how, for 18 months, the territory acquired the status of a separate colony with its own Colonial Governor, until a second plebiscite’s outcome determined the territory should revert to Nigerian rule. Mubi, Mambilla and the Alantika Mountains provide the wild backdrop for fascinating tales of adventure and political intrigue. This account of the early part of John Hare’s life explains why, many  years later, he so readily took up the cause of the wild camel, an undertaking which enabled him to venture into forbidden areas in the Chinese Gobi desert and live again the adventurous life of exploration and administration he had experienced in Nigeria as a young man.

John Hare FRGS, explorer and conservationist, as well as working in Africa, has undertaken several expeditions on double-humped camels into the Chinese and Mongolian Gobi Deserts to research the critically endangered wild camel. He was the first foreigner to enter Lop Nur (China’s former nuclear test site) for 45 years and the first in recorded history to cross the hostile Gashun Gobi  Desert from north to south. In 2001/2002 he made a three-and-a-half month crossing of the Sahara Desert by camel.

He has been awarded the Ness Award by the Royal Geographical Society, the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal by the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and the Lowell Thomas Award by the Explorers’ Club of America - for furthering exploration and dedication to protecting the critically endangered wild camel.

He is married with three daughters and lives, when he is not travelling, in Kent.

"... such an important testimony it must be preserved for future scholars and researchers."             
Derek Mountain OBE, former Resident, Northern Nigeria

"Congratulations on the comprehensive coverage of your Nigerian experience. I was looking for a book on  the Mambilla Plateau, . . . it is much more than that."
Abubakar B. Jauro, formerly the Executive Secretary, Lake Chad
Basin Commission and a Federal Permanent Secretary, Nigeria