Kenya, East Africa, Aberdares National Park Safaris and Accommodation

ABERDARES NATIONAL PARK

Aberdare national park is located in the range of the same name, described by Joseph Thomson in 1883 during his journey through the Maasai Land. Kikuyu people still use the range's traditional name, Nyandarua. From 1947 to 1956, the misty and rainy forests in the range served as a hide for the Mau-Mau guerrilla. The park was gazetted in 1950 with an extension of 584 km², but was afterwards enlarged to 770 km², making it the third largest park in the country.

The Aberdare range, 160 km long, is located in the Central Highlands, Central Province, west of Mount Kenya and north of Nairobi, serving as the Kenyan Rift Valley's east wall. The national park comprises a longitudinal strip from south to north, with a projection toward the east denominated The Salient, which runs down to an altitude of 2,130 m, near the town of Nyeri. The Salient has its origin in an ancient migratory route of elephants between the range and Mount Kenya.

The park is the highest in all Africa, since most of the plateau is located above an altitude of 3,000 m. The highest peaks in the park are the Kinangop, with 3,906 m, and the Oldonyo Lesatima, "the mountain of the young bull" in the Maa language of the Maasai, with 4,001 m. The landscape is dominated by deeply foggy rain forest, which confers the park a fairyland atmosphere. Trouts breed in the mountain streams, which burst down spectacular waterfalls, like the Keruru Kahuru of 270 m and the Gura of 240 m in the South area, or the Chania Falls in the central sector of the park. Due to the high humidity, the tracks crossing the park are muddy for a large part of the year.

Aberdare contains a rich botanic wealth, a mixture of equatorial exuberance and alpine vegetation. Above the 2,000 m level, the rain forest gives way to the bamboo jungles, that at 3,000 m become mountain prairies in which groundsel and giant lobelias grow high.
Though the park registers a high number of visitors, most of them just do it for an overnight stay at its famous lodges, reason why in fact the park is largely unknown for most of the visitors.

The Aberdare wildlife is awesome, though the thick vegetation cover makes it difficult to spot animals except from the lodges. The rich forest sustains populations of elephant, buffalo, warthog and several species of antelope, like waterbuck, duiker, suni, dik-dik, eland, bushbuck and reedbuck. The park protects a healthy population of black rhino and also offers the chance to see some of the typical forest species, such as the giant forest hog or the shy and beautiful bongo, perhaps the rarest and most splendid of all Kenyan antelopes.

Primates are represented by black and white colobus, Sykes' monkeys and vervet monkeys. Regarding the felines, lions show their mountain adaptation, tree-climbing behaviour and a longer and speckled coat. Lions have proliferated in such a way that a culling program has been undertaken to protect some of the herbivores, particularly the rare bongo. Leopards and servals are also found, sometimes in their melanic variety, showing a black coat which is usually associated with an adaptation to the high altitude.

More than 200 species of birds have been registered in the park. Among them the visitor may spot the crowned eagle, which feeds on monkeys, or hear the noisy silvery-cheeked hornbill. Sunbirds are represented by the violet Tacazze, the malachite or the scarlet tufted malachite in the high moorlands. Some species of doves and pigeons are usual inhabitants of the upper forest layers. Waterholes usually host black-headed herons, Egyptian geese, sacred ibis and yellow-billed ducks, among other species.

Aberdare National Park is famous for its tree-house hotels - Treetops and The Ark. With walkways and accommodation raised into the forest canopy, you can watch animals from a unique vantage point. Positioned by waterholes and natural salt licks, animals provide constant entertainment and seem undisturbed by the stream of curious visitors, some of whom stay up all night to catch sightings of shy animals by floodlight. There is even a viewing hide dug below ground with windows level with the waterhole, where elephant’s feet come within inches of your face.

A trip into the treetop lodges of the Aberdares is quite unique and the rooms have a bell system, to wake you up for particularly good sightings, whereupon you can go to the viewing decks or just peer out of your window. For example a leopard may warrant two rings, while a hyena might only get one ring.

Elephants dominate the waterholes and salt licks and when the lions and hyenas want a drink they have to contend with elephants seeing them off at great speed. Leopards are shy and are best seen under the night-time floodlights.

Game drives or walks through the forest may reveal some of the monkeys for whom this is ideal habitat, and some of the many birds found here. At about 10,000 feet (3,048m), the bamboo thickets are the favourite haunt of the bongo, a rare and elusive forest antelope.

SEASONS

Daytime temperatures are pleasant year round but it gets colder day and night during the dry winter months.

Rainy Season: April - June - hot and wet (long rains), November - December - warm and wet (short rains).

Dry Season: January - March - hot and dry, July - October - cool and dry with very cold nights.

ABERDARE SPECIALITIES

• Treetop accommodation
• Viewing animals from above
• Night and day game viewing at waterholes and salt lick
• Close up elephants
• Lion and leopard
• Spectacular rainforest and mountain forest scenery