The Tsavo East National Park is one of the oldest and largest parks in Kenya. Situated in a semi-arid area previously known as the Taru Desert it officially opened in April 1948, and is located near the town of Voi in the Taita-Taveta County of the former Coast Province.

Tsavo is home to most of the larger mammals, vast herds of dust – red elephant, Rhino, buffalo, lion, leopard, pods of hippo, crocodile, waterbucks, lesser Kudu, gerenuk and the prolific bird life features 500 recorded species.

The park is also where one of the most globally recognisable pictures - dust-red elephants wallowing, rolling and spraying each other with the midnight blue waters of palm-shaded Galana River was taken. It remains one of the more evocative images of Africa.

Additionally, the park is also part of legend. As the story goes in early 1898 British soldier, hunter, and author Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson was sent to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya’s wild Tsavo region, however before he could arrive a report reached his desk about a pair of maneless male lions stalking the railway construction workers campsite at night and dragging people from their tents as they slept. This story soon became part of the colonel’s book “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo” published in 1907.

In this episode of “Magical Scenes” Irene Muchuma explores the enduring wonder of Tsavo.