Aberdare National Park; Aberdare National Park covers an area of 767 square Kilometers and is located in the Central Highlands of Kenya west of mountain Kenya and about 180 kilometers from Nairobi. The Aberdare National Park was created in 1950 to protect the forested slopes and moors of the Aberdare Mountains.

The Park covers altitudes from about 7,000 feet to 14,000 feet above sea level. The Aberdare National Park covers an area of 766 square kilometers and forms part of Aberdare Mountain Range. There are wide range of landscapes – mountain peaks with rise of 14,000 above sea level, v-shaped valleys intersected by streams, rivers and waterfalls. At lower altitudes moorland, bamboo forests and rainforests.

Aberdare National Park is famous for its Tree-House Hotels – Treetops and Fairmont Ark Lodge. With walkways and accommodation raised into the forest canopy, you can watch animals from a unique vantage point. Positioned by waterhole’s 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 elephants fee come within inches of your face.

Aberdare National Park Safari into the treetop lodges is quite unique as all 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 waterhole’s 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 floodlight.
Aberdare National Park 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 favorite haunt of the bongo, a rare and elusive forest antelope.

Animals easily observed in the Aberdare National Park include the lion, leopard, baboon, black and white Colobus, and sykes monkey. Rarer sightings include those of the Golden Cat and the Bongo – an elusive forest antelope that lives in the bamboo forest. Animals like the eland and spotted and melanistic serval cats can be found higher up in the moorlands. The Aberdare National Park also contains the second largest population of the Black Rhino, unique to Kenya. Visitors can also indulge in walking, picnics, trout fishing in the rivers and camping in the moorlands. Even the bird viewing is rewarding, with over 250 species of birds in the Park, including the Jackson’s Francolin, sparrow hawk, goshawk, eagle, sunbird and plover.

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

April – June – hot and wet (long rains)
November – December – warm and wet (short rains).
January – March – hot and dry
July – October – cool and dry with very cold nights.