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Treetops is located in the Aberdare National park in Mweiga and is 17 km from Outspan Nyeri. The lodge rises straight out of the ground on stilts and has four decks and a rooftop viewing platform. Being the original tree lodge, Treetops is legendry for its royal connection and the animals it attracts i.e. Rhinos, Elephants, Buffalos, Bushbucks, Waterbucks and many other species.
Treetops shot into media limelight when Princess Elizabeth learned of the death of her father, George VI, which occurred on 6 February 1952, the night she was at Treetops, while in Kenya. She was the first British monarch since the Act of Union in 1801 to be outside the country at the moment of succession, and also the first in modern times not to know the exact time of her accession (because her father, George VI, had died in his sleep at an unknown time). On the night her father died, Sir Horace Hearne, then Chief Justice of Kenya, escorted Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, to a state dinner at the Treetops Hotel. She returned immediately to Britain. The legendary hunter Jim Corbett, a resident of Treetops at the time, wrote the now famous lines in the visitors' log book:
Commemorative Plaque at the Treetops Hotel 2005
For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen — God bless her.