'I will come again,' the princess promised happily, as they were driven away. After breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, the royals climbed down at 10am for the return to Sagana. The princess was up again at dawn, testing the light with her meter as two rhinos squabbled over the waterhole. Corbett sat up all night with a rifle at the top of the ladder. The princess spent much of the afternoon filming with her cine-camera, so engrossed that she asked for tea to be served on the viewing platform rather than miss anything by going inside. There were baboons, warthog and bushbuck, too. The nearest elephant was only eight yards away as Lady Pamela Mountbatten and Commander Mike Parker followed. Spearmen at the edge of the forest kept intruders at bay as the royals arrived at the waterhole and climbed the rickety ladder to the three-bedroomed branch hotel at the top. No cameras either, because the princess needed a break. No journalists were allowed, as it was believed the scent of the additional bodies would frighten wildlife. Walker laid down strict ground rules for the Treetops visit. Fleeing to Canada, he married Lady Bettie and emigrated to Kenya, where he built the Outspan hotel. A shootout ashore had led to a warrant for his arrest after a corrupt state trooper had been wounded. Needing money later to marry Lady Bettie, he had sailed four boatloads of liquor to America during Prohibition and sold his cargo over the side, just outside territorial waters. He then walked across Germany to the Dutch border. Private secretary to Baden-Powell before the Great War, he had been shot down while in the Royal Flying Corps, but had escaped from prison camp with a pair of wirecutters that Baden-Powell had hidden inside a gift of ham. Walker was a colourful character of the kind that gravitated naturally towards Kenya in colonial days. Retired from India, Corbett lived in a cottage at the Outspan previously occupied by Lord Baden-Powell. The two of them were hosts for the visit, along with the naturalist Jim Corbett, after whom the Corbett National Park in India is named. It was the brainchild of Eric Walker, owner of the Outspan hotel in Nyeri, and his wife, Lady Bettie, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh. Treetops is old hat now, but in 1952 it was the only place of its kind in the world. They planned to spend the night watching wildlife, enjoying a respite from their duties before continuing the rest of their tour. Three days after they arrived, the royal couple travelled up-country to Sagana and from there they drove after lunch on 5 February to Treetops, the game-viewing lodge built in a tree overlooking an elephant waterhole. It was only fear of ridicule that stopped them cancelling the African leg of the trip. The officials responsible for the princess's tour of Kenya, Australia and New Zealand felt unable to guarantee her safety while she was in Kenya.

The Mau Mau campaign had just broken out across the White Highlands. It was a dangerous time in the British colony. The crowd gave him a sympathetic cheer as he stood in the bitter cold to wave goodbye to his daughter. They were seen off by the king, too ill with lung cancer to make the tour himself. The princess and her husband had flown from Heathrow to Kenya on 31 January.

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