The lush forests of the Aberdares ensure that animals who make these woods their home will almost always find water. The alpine-like landscape makes an unexpected back drop for African animals.

Aberdares

This park is a fairyland, awesome in its majesty and beauty. The highest point of the Aberdare mountain range is Ol Doinyo Satima (the mountain of the young bull in Maa the language of the Maasai), which reaches 3998m. There is a road which traverses the mountains from Naivasha to Nyeri. At its maximum elevation the road passes through misty moorlands at about 3350m where strange six meter tall mutants of alpine plants groundsel, erica, hypericum, lobelia and sennecio - grow in profusion. Icy rivers plunge in glorious cascades and spectacular waterfalls. The Salient which thrusts a dense forest through rich farmland is where both Treetops and the Ark are situated. The salient's origin lies in an elephant migration route between the two mountains, now sadly no longer.

But the forest is rich in wildlife; elephant and rhino, warthog, bush pig and giant forest hog, waterbuck, duiker, suni, dikdik, bongo and reedbuck are all to be seen. In the canopy the black and white colobus monkey performs its aerial acrobatics and Sykes' monkey and the black faced vervet can also be found. The carnivores are represented by lion, usually more hairy and spotted than on the plains, leopard and serval, the latter often seen on the moorlands and sometimes in its melanistic state. Birds are not only plentiful but also dazzling. The crowned eagle (which eats monkeys) is everywhere and the forest echoes to the shrill cries of the Silvery-cheeked hornbill. The resplendent sunbirds are well represented, among them the brilliant metallic violet Tacazze, the emerald green Malachite Sunbird and on the moorlands the Scarlet tufted Malachite Sunbird, with its very long slender tail. The number of visitors to the Aberdares is high in the park rankings but this is because of the Ark and Treetops lodges. The park itself is still very much under-visited despite its grandeur and its powerful vistas.