Prep Safaris > Parks & Reserves > Aberdare

Aberdare National Park offers magnificent scenery and unusual wildlife

Situated in the magnificent Aberdare Mountain ranges, the Aberdare National Park is a fascinating region of Kenya. The vegetation here is mountain rain forest, moorlands, thick bamboo forest and sub alpine plants. It is only 10km from Nyeri town, the burial place of the Boy Scout movement's founder Lord Baden-Powell.

The soaring peaks of the range give birth to numerous streams and rivers that cascade into spectacular waterfalls, making it a fantastic palce for trout fishing in the ice-cold waters. Wildlife comprises buffalo, rhino, elephant, lion, serval cat, leopard, eland, giant forest hog, red duiker, bushbuck, colobus and sykes monkey.

The beautiful landscape of Aberdare make it ideal for hiking along the many nature trails.

A wonderful land for camping and hiking

The high moorland, reminiscent of European highlands, is home to eland and serval cats, some of which are melanistic. Flora include giant alpine varieties of lobelia, groundsel and heather. Amongst the birds to be seen in the high moorland are the scarlet-tufted malachite sunbird, Augur buzzard, montane francolin and white-naped raven.

Decending the slopes the moorland gives way to a belt of bamboo, a favourite haunt of the Bongo, a rare and elusive forest antelope.

Below this are forested slopes in which the rivers have carved deep ravines. In the forest are red duiker, suni, bushbuck - some of the old males are nearly black - elephant, buffalo, giant forest hog, leopard- all black examples have been recorded - and colobus monkey.