Aberdare National Park
Cold highland forest and moorland, with bongo and black leopard.
Overview
The Aberdares are a forested range rising from about 1,900 metres to nearly 4,000 in the Kenyan central highlands, and the park is split in character between the two. The Salient on the eastern slope is dense montane forest, and the place where tree hotels were invented: Treetops and The Ark both overlook floodlit waterholes, and guests sit up at night watching elephant, buffalo, giant forest hog and bushbuck come to the salt. Above the forest the land opens into high moorland of tussock grass and giant heather, cut by the Karuru and Gura waterfalls, where the mood is Scottish rather than African. The range is one of the last strongholds of the mountain bongo, a forest antelope now critically endangered, and melanistic leopard — black leopard — are reported here more often than almost anywhere. Neither is likely on a short visit. The Aberdares are also one of Nairobi’s main water towers.