This short safari is ideal for a weekend and it can start on Friday and end on Sunday. The safari takes you to the Aberdare National Park.

Day 1: Nairobi and the Aberdare National Park
Distance: 180 km (3 hours drive). Depart Nairobi at 0800hrs. Cross the Kenyan Highlands, through pineapple and coffee plantations in Thika, Murang’a and Nyeri.

We arrive at your base hotel, the Aberdare Country Club, in time for lunch. In the afternoon, you will be transferred to the Treetops Lodge in the Aberdare National Park. We have chosen Treetops Hotel, which is within sight of Mount Kenya, for you because it has a rich history. First opened in 1932 by Eric Sherbrooke Walker, the hotel was literally built into the tops of the trees as a tree house, offering the guests a close view of the local wildlife in complete safety. From the original modest two room tree house, it has grown into 50 rooms. The original structure was burned down by during the 1954 Mau Mau Uprising against the British colonialists, but the hotel was rebuilt near the same waterhole and has become a fashionably exotic adventure for many of the rich and famous.

Treetops Hotel

The hotel includes observation lounges and ground level photographic hides from which guests can observe the local wildlife which come to the nearby waterholes.

Treetops shot into international limelight when Princess Elizabeth, currently Britain’s Queen Elibazeth, learned of the death of her father, George VI, which occurred on 6 February 1952, the night she was at Treetops, while in Kenya.

It was there that, uniquely, she "went up a princess and came down a Queen". She was the first British monarch since the Act of Union in 1801 to be outside the country at the moment of succession, and also the first in modern times not to know the exact time of her accession (because her father, George VI, had died in his sleep at an unknown time). On the night her father died, Sir Horace Hearne, then Chief Justice of Kenya, escorted The Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, to a state dinner at the Treetops Hotel. She returned immediately to England.

Treetops is sited in the heart of the dense lichen hung forest of the Aberdares National Park and overlooks two waterholes, and the magnificent snowy peaks of Mount Kenya.

The Lodge has an overnight floodlit game viewing veranda that overlooks a floodlit waterhole and saltlick allowing undisturbed views of wildlife visiting the waterhole. Elephant, rhino, leopard, bushbuck and occasionally an elusive bongo and giant forest hog have been sighted.

A ground level bunker provides excellent photographic opportunities and takes you closer than you would believe possible to the wildlife.

Day 2: Aberdares

Enjoy breakfast at your lodge. The day is spent at leisure enjoying the various optional activities available from the lodge. The Aberdare wildlife is awesome, the rich forest sustains populations of elephant, buffalo, warthog and several species of antelope, 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. Regarding the felines, lions show their mountain adaptation, tree-climbing behaviour and a longer and speckled coat. We depart the Treetops Lodge in the evening and return to Nyeri. Overnight at the Outspan or Aberdare Country Club. With views of Mount Kenya and framed by the white water of the Chania River, the Outspan is the nearest hotel to the spectacular Karua Falls in the Aberdare National Park.

Buffalos at Aberdares National Park

Nestling on the slopes of Kamatongu Hill, the cottages of the Aberdare Country Club offer splendid views of the plains below with the Aberdare range of mountains to the West and Mt Kenya to the East.

Day 3: Aberdares and Nairobi
After breakfast, we begin our journey to Nairobi. We arrive at the capital city early afternoon and drop you at the place of your choice.