A Tall Order

Written and photography by Tim Beddow

Sharing my breakfast with a Rothschild giraffe is not just faintly surreal but huge fun, charmingly chaotic, rather wondrous, and an unforgettable experience. This would likely be the case for anyone interested in wildlife, conservation, and African safari. For to touch, see, sniff, and feed (with organic nuts) these elegant—and endangered—animals at such close proximity is a special experience to be savored.

I had arrived at Kenya’s Giraffe Manor the day before, after a long flight from England. I had been driven through the notoriously mad Nairobi traffic out to the leafy suburb of Langata and into the oasis that is Giraffe Manor, a wonderfully eccentric faux Scottish hunting lodge built in 1932 by Sir David Duncan, a member of the Mackintosh family of Mackintosh’s Toffee fame. I might have been arriving for a weekend house party in the Highlands, were it not for some scurrying warthogs and the dozen or so tall, leggy, graceful herbivores wandering around the lawns and acacia trees.