Safari Overview

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant and rhino orphanage inside the western end of Nairobi National Park, offers a wonderful opportunity to see the baby elephants being fed with milk from bottles and when they play with each other. The keepers will give you a lecture of each of them explaining their names and their life histories on how they were orphaned. It’s a great place to go and adopt a baby elephant.

The trust was run for many years by Dame Daphne Sheldrick in memory of her husband David Sheldrick, the founding warden of Tsavo National Park. Dame Daphne died in 2018, but the hand-rearing methods and substitute elephant milk formula that she developed over many years of trial and error will outlive her and are now being replicated across Africa.

The Giraffe Centre in Nairobi is an amazing place to visit. It started as a rehabilitation project to rescue the Rothschild Giraffe. There were only 120 giraffes left in a ranch in Western Kenya when the Giraffe Center was founded.

The giraffe centre provides you with pellets that you can feed the giraffes by hand with. You can even give take photos while feeding the animals by your mouth and it seems like you are kissing the giraffe. That is a priceless photo opportunity to miss.

Detailed Itinerary

The tour starts by picking you from Nairobi Airport/Hotel early in the morning.
You will then be driven to Giraffe center where you will get a completely up close and personal interaction with Rothschild giraffes viewing them as well as feeding them. The center has rescued, hand-reared and released around 500 orphaned giraffes back into the wild since opening in 1979. You can’t imagine the size of a giraffe’s head until one licks you!, This attraction offered opportunities to feed the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe by hand or by kissing. The location also offers a fine education on the physiology, behaviors and habitat preferences of these beautiful animals.

We will then drive you to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust have a walk through the little center from 11 am -12 pm in an open space, with a rope fence around it. The youngest elephants come trotting out of the bush to greet their keepers who stand at the ready with giant bottles of milk. For the next 10-15 minutes, you can watch each little one slurp and gargle their milk. When they’re done, there’s water to play with and keepers to nudge and get hugs from. You can reach out and touch and nuzzle any elephant that comes close to the ropes, occasionally they’ll slip under the ropes and have to be chased back by the keepers. While you get to watch them play and take photos. You find out how old they were when they arrived at the orphanage, where they were rescued from, and what got them into trouble. The most common reasons for getting orphaned being: mother’s poached, falling into wells, and human/wildlife conflict.

Once the youngest are all fed, they are led back into the bush, and it’s the turn of the 2-3-year-olds. Some of them can feed themselves, and some are still fed by their keepers. It’s very cute to watch them hold their giant milk bottles in their trunks and close their eyes with joy as they make quick work of several gallons of milk. Again, you are free to touch them if they come close to the ropes (and they will), and watch them interact with their keepers, munch on some branches of their favorite acacias, and play with the half drums of water and mud.

Daphne Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage Day Trip itinerary

9:30am: Pick up from your Hotel for the Sheldrick elephant orphanage trip

10:15am: Arrive at the Daphne Sheldrick orphanage shelter

11:00am: Start of the Public viewing of the baby elephants at the Nairobi Elephant orphanage

12:00pm: End of the public viewing and lecture on baby elephants.

12:15pm: Depart the Daphne Sheldrick elephant orphanage and head to the giraffe center.

Giraffe Center Day Tour Itinerary

1:00pm: Arrive at the Giraffe centre located at the Karen suburbs. Start feeding the giraffes as you hug them and take pictures up close with these humble giants.

4.00pm: Giraffe centre day tour ends with a drop off in your hotel in the city.

Cost Includes & Excludes

Included in the Safari Cost

Arrival & Departure airport transfers complementary to all our clients.
Transportation as per itinerary.
Accommodation per itinerary or similar with a request to all our clients.
Meals as per itinerary Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
Services literate English driver/guide.
National park & game reserve entrance fees as per itinerary.
Excursions & activities as per itinerary with a request
Recommended Mineral Water while on safari.

Excluded in the Safari Cost

Visas and related costs.
Personal Taxes.
Drinks, tips, laundry, telephone calls and other items of a personal nature.
International flights.
Optional excursions and activities not listed in the itinerary like Balloon safari, Masai Village.

Cost Includes & Excludes

The cost of this safari will vary depending on date of travel, type of accommodation, transport mode and number of people on the safari.

Please contact us on email info@topcatssafaris.com or phone +254 (722) 350 505 and and we shall get back to you within the shortest time possible.

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