Tsavo East – Harmony Safari Expeditions

Overview & Attractions

Tsavo East National Park is located about 260km south east of Nairobi, on the main Nairobi to Mombasa road and 140 Kilometers from Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa. Tsavo East is part of the Greater Tsavo National Park that includes Tsavo East and West National Parks and the Chyulu Hills and consists mostly of miles and miles of dry flat thorn-bush, semi-arid acacia scrub and narrow woodland dominated by acacia. The wonderful Baobab trees are also a common sight in the Park. Whilst Tsavo East is huge (over 4500sq miles), most of the park north of the Galana river is closed to the general public with only a few private safari operations permitted to enter.

Accommodation

Patterson's Camp

Patterson's Camp is built on a site where the original railway gangs worked to run the line up to Kisumu. Legend has it that many of the workers (mostly imports from India) were mauled or eaten by lions here. Lieutenant Colonel J H Patterson was an Indian army officer with long experience in railway construction who was sent to build a bridge over the Tsavo River with the expectation that he would be all done in four to five months time. A year went by, however before the bridge was ready for traffic.This was mainly thanks to the lions that kept terrorizing the workers and thereby delaying work. Pair of lions - a male and his mate (relatively named Ghost & Darkness respectively) - were particularly notorious and gained the sort of notoriety customarily reserved for the dragons of medieval legend. In his killing them, Patterson emerged from the duel as something of a nineteenth century St. George.Patterson's Camp is named in memory of those days long gone.