Nairobi Excursions,short safaris in Nairobi Kenya,Nairobi National Park Tour

African Sermon Safaris 2005 - 2008. All rights reserved � Copyright. Kenya House, Koinange Street,
P.O. Box 51322 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya. Website: www.continentalsafaris.com tours@continentalsafaris.com Tel: +254 20 2244 068; Fax: +254 20 317 656; Mobile: +254 722 884 748

Nairobi Excursions,short safaris in Nairobi Kenya,Nairobi National Park Tour, short safari, nairobi city tour, karen blixen, nairobi national park, bomas of kenya, giraffe centre, national museum, carnivore experience, kenya excursions, David Sheldrick baby elephant orhanage.

Nairobi National Park:
Nairobi National Park is a national park in Kenya. It became Kenya's first national park when it was established in 1946. It is located approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) south of the centre of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city, and is small in relation to most of Africa's national parks. Nairobi's skyscrapers can be seen from the park. The park has a large and varied wildlife population. Only a fence separates the park's animals from the city. Migrating herbivores concentrate in the park during the dry season. It is one of Kenya's most successful rhinoceros sanctuaries. The park's proximity to Nairobi causes conflicts between the park's animals and local people and threatens animals'

The park has a large and diverse wildlife population. Species found in the park include African buffalo, baboon, black rhinoceros, Burchell's zebra, cheetah, Coke's hartebeest, Grant's gazelle, hippopotamus, leopard, lion, Thomson's gazelle, eland, impala, Masai giraffe, ostrich, vulture, and waterbuck.

Herbivores, including wildebeest and zebra, use the Kitengela conservation area and migration corridor to the south of the park to reach the Athi-Kapiti plains. They disperse over the plains in the wet season and return to the park in the dry season. The concentration of wildlife in the park is greatest in the dry season, when areas outside the park have dried up. Small dams built along the Mbagathi River give the park more water resources than these outside areas. They attract water dependent herbivores during the dry season. The park is the northern limit for wildlife migrations in the dry season. The park has a high diversity of bird species, with up to 500 permanent and migratory species in the park. Dams have created a man-made habitat for birds and aquatic species.

The David Sheldrick Trust runs a sanctuary in the park that hand-rears orphaned elephant and rhinoceros calves, and later releases them back into secure sanctuaries. Orphaned and sick animals are brought to the sanctuary from all over Kenya. The sanctuary is located close to the park's main entrance. It was opened in 1963. It was set up by Daphne Sheldrick after the death of her husband, the anti-poaching warden of Tsavo National Park. The park is one of Kenya's most successful rhinoceros sanctuaries, and it is one of only a few parks where visitors can be certain of seeing a black rhinoceros in its natural habitat.

Karen Blixen Museum:
Karen Blixen Museum was once the centre piece of a farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills owned by Danish Author Karen and her Swedish Husband, Baron Bror von Blixen Fincke. Located 10km from the city centre, the Museum belongs to a different time period in the history of Kenya. The farm house gained international fame with the release of the movie Out of Africa an Oscar winning film based on Karen an autobiography by the same title.

The Museum is open to the Public every day (9.30 am to 6pm) including weekends and public holidays. Visitors are encouraged to be at the Museum by 5.30. Guided tours are offered continuously. A museum shop offers handicrafts, posters and postcards, the Movie Out of Africa, books and other Kenyan souvenirs. The grounds may be rented for wedding receptions, corporate functions and other events.

The Museum was built in 1912 by Swedish Engineer Ake Sjogren. Karen and her husband bought the Museum house in 1917 and it become the farm house for their 4500 acre farm, of which 600 acres was used for coffee farming. Their marriage failed after eight years and in 1921 the Baron moved on and left the running of the farm to Karen. Karen lived at the house until her return to Denmark in 1931. The house farm was bought by Remy Marin, who broke the land into 20 acre parcels for development. Subsequent development created the present suburb of Karen. Records indicate that a Lt. Col.G. Lloyd, an officer of the British Army bought the house in 1935 and lived there until his death in 1954, when it passed to his daughters, Mrs. G. Robersts and Lavender Llyod. A transfer of title to Mrs. J.P Robson and Mrs L.B. Hyde is in City Hall records in 1956. The house was sporadically occupied until purchased in 1964 by the Danish government and given to the Kenyan government as an independence gift.

The government set up a college of nutrition and the Museum was initially used as the principal house. In 1985 the shooting of a movie based on Karen autobiography began and the National Museums of Kenya expressed acquired the house for the purpose of establishing a Museum. The Museum was opened in 1986.

Karen also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen was born at Rungstedlund in Denmark on 17th of April 1885 as the second child of Wilhelm and Ingeborg Dinesen five children. She came to Africa in 1914 to marry her half cousin and carry out dairy farming in the then British Colony of Kenya. Her husband had however changed his mind and wanted to farm coffee. Her uncle Aage Westenholz financed the farm and members of both families were share holders. The coffee farm did not do well, suffering various tragedies including factory fire and continuous bad harvest. After her divorce, Karen was left to run the financially troubled farm on her own, a daunting task for a woman of that generation. She fell in love with an English man, Denis Finch Hatton, and his death in Tsavo in 1930 coupled with the failed farming left Karen little choice but to return to Denmark. She turned to writing as a career following her departure from Africa and published to increasing acclaim such works as Seven Gothic Tales(1934) Out of Africa(1937) and Babette Feat (1950). She died on her family estate, Rungsted, in 1962 at the age of 77.

Karen Blixen MuseumThe Karen Blixen house meets three of the customary criteria for historical significance. First, it is associated with the broad historical pattern of European settlement and cultivation of East Africa. Second, it is associated with the life of a person significant to our past as the home of Baroness Karen Blixen from 1917 -1931. As such, it served as the setting and basis of her well known book Out of Africa, written under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen and as a gathering place for other well known personalities of the period. Third, the building embodies the distinctive characteristics of its type, period and method of construction. The house's architecture is typical of late 19th century bungalow architecture, including the spacious rooms, horizontal layout verandas, tile roof and stone construction typical of scores of residences built throughout European suburbs of Nairobi in early decades.

The chronology of the house begins with its construction in 1912 by the wealthy Swedish civil engineer, later honorary Swedish consul to Kenya , Ake Sjogren. It served as the main residence on his Swedo-African coffee company , an estate of over 6,000 acres. The house was soon visited while on safari by the Danish count Mojen Frijs, who upon his return to Denmark persuaded his cousin to seek their fortune in Kenya. Baron Blixen acquired part of the estate in 1913 and the remainder in 1916. Karen Blixen called the house "Bogani" or "Mbogani" meaning a house in the woods, and occupied it until 1931.

By 1985, with renewed interest in Karen Blixen occasioned by the film production of Out of Africa, an agreement was reach with the collage for the house to become part of the National Museums of Kenya. Many pieces of furniture that Karen Blixen sold to Lady McMillan on her departure were acquired back and constitute part of the exhibition in the Museum. The Museum house remains a serene environment that seems to belong to the past, surrounded by a tranquil garden and indigenous forest, with a splendid view of Karen beloved Ngong Hills. She honours the hills with the phrase had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

CONTACT US NOW!