|
Arusha National Park covers an area of 328.4km and is famous for it’s
variation in game animas that can be viewed at a very close quarters.
As the park is very close to Moshi town and Arusha city, it is an ideal day
trip destination even for visitors whom are attending seminars, workshops or
have business in Arusha and Moshi. Mount Meru is also located within the
park.
Park history
In 1876, Count
Teleki,
a Hungarian, visited the Momella area. He commented on the vast number of
hippo’s and rhinos that he saw. The latter, however, are sadly no longer in
the park.
In 1907 the Trappe family moved to Momella to start farming, using large
areas of the present park as a cattle ranch.
The elder Mrs. Trappe was the first woman to become a professional hunter in
East Africa
The following are attractions are worth visiting in the Arusha National
Park:
Serengeti
Ndogo
The “little Serengeti” describes the open grassland, a place in the park
there various animals in large numbers can easily be seen, such as
buffaloes, warthogs, zebras, waterbucks and giraffes.
Ngurdoto Museum
This museum in that is situated in the park is where you will find stuffed
and mounted mammals along with birds and insects.
The building overlooks the Ngordoto natural forest, the home of the black
and white Colobus monkey.
Ngordoto forest has a wide variety of species. for identification purposes,
labels have been attached to some dominant trees species such as wild mango,
tabernae
montana usambarensis and other species such as
bersama
abyssinica, raulfia, coffra olea capensis (cape olive) ,the list is not
exhaustive as many more species grow here..
Ngordoto crater
The Ngordoto volcano is now extinct, but from the pear-shape of the present
day crater in seems that towards the end of its activity there were two
cones lying very close together. When the molten rock below the cones
withdrew to deeper levels, the cones were left without support so they
collapsed into its present form. |
|
