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The Aberdare range , which peaks at 4001m, is less well known than Mount Kenya. The lower, eastern slopes have long been farmed by the Kikuyu (more recently by European tea and coffee planters), and the dense mountain forests covering the middle reaches are the habitat of leopard, bongo, buffalo and some six thousand elephants. Above about 3500m, lions and other open-country animals roam the cloudy moorlands. Melanistic forms - especially of leopard, but also of serval cat and even bushbuck - are also present. The Kikuyu called these mountains Nyandarua ("drying hide", for their silhouette) long before Thomson in 1884 named them after Lord Aberdare, president of the Royal Geographical Society. In their bamboo thickets and tangled forests, Kikuyu guerrillas hid out for years in the 1950s, living off the jungle and surviving thanks to techniques learned under British officers during the Burma campaign in World War II, in which many of them had fought. Despite the manhunts through the forests and the bombing of hideouts, little damage was done to the natural habitat, and Aberdares National Park remains one of Kenya's most pristine forest reserves. On the western side, the range drops away steeply to the Rift. It was here, in the high Wanjohi Valley , that a concentration of settlers in the 1920s and 1930s created the myth of Happy Valley out of their obsessive - and unsettled - lives. There's not much to see (or hear) these days. The old wheat and pyrethrum farms were subdivided after Independence and the valley's new settlers are more concerned with making their market gardens pay. The memories live on only among veteran wazungu . The Kinangop plateau was settled by Europeans, too, but the high forest and moorland here was declared Aberdares National Park in 1950. The park, which stretches 60km along the length of the peaks, with the "Salient" on the lower slopes reaching out east (access to the Salient only if you're staying at The Ark or Treetops ), includes, like Mount Kenya National Park, the worst of the weather. Rainfall up here is high, often closing the Aberdares to vehicles in the wet season, although the "tree-hotel" game lodges - The Ark and Treetops - stay open all year. Somewhat inaccessible, the park is nevertheless close enough to Nairobi to be well worth the effort of getting to Naivasha or Nyeri , the usual bases. You'll find less transport travelling in the lower Aberdares than around Mount Kenya, but it's still relatively easy to get around, with regular bus and matatu services between the villages. Heading over the mountains and through the park , however, hitching is the sole, very uncertain, option if you don't have a vehicle. Determination can pay dividends, but you could wait for days. If you're going to try, it's suggested you stop at the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri and try to arrange a lift. If you tire of this, matatu-hop your way towards Ruhuruini Gate , deep in the forest, and try waiting at the gate itself. This, like Matubio Gate on the Naivasha side (which you could also probably reach in a half-day of lifts and walking) is friendly and helpful and would certainly allow you to camp. Nyahururu , the other important town in the region, has Thomson's Falls as a postcard attraction, and is also the setting-off point for a wild cross-country journey to Lake Bogoria in the Rift Valley, 1500m below. From here, too, begins one of the four routes into the northern deserts, in this case to Maralal and Loiyangalani on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana. Though independent travel is still an option on this route, going up in the safety of a safari company's organized trip is recommended.
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