Beautifully lit by the soft, honeyed rays of the fast-setting African sun, a small group of elephants left the trees bordering the crater. They were heading to one of the nearby pools for their evening drink, one that they would surely enjoy in blissful peace and quiet. Although there were a hundred or so buffalo grazing on the other side of the Ngurdoto Crater, there wasn’t a single person inside it. Jorg Gabriel and I, perched high on the southern rim, were the only people for miles around, and we weren’t making a sound, both of us silently absorbed in the exquisite tranquillity of place. Not that far away in a larger, better-known Tanzanian crater – the Ngorongoro – a cacophonous scramble was undoubtedly taking place as scores of vehicles hurried out of the park.

Visitors to Africa, who want to avoid the potential scrum of vehicles in the more popular national parks, would do well to pay a visit to Ngurdoto and the Arusha National Park that houses it. One of East Africa’s hidden gems, the diverse park offers extraordinary natural beauty and appeal. Its very name, something of a misnomer, leads many travellers to presume it’s tacked onto the sprawling service town of Arusha. In fact, it’s a good hour’s drive away, seemingly resting in a world of its own.

Few people know Tanzania as well as Gabriel, a German who grew up in East Africa thanks to his father being a diplomat. His Tanzania guidebook, first published in 1996, continues to be a bestseller in Germany and is about to be reprinted for the fourth time. He and his wife, Marlies, now run the colourful Hatari Lodge, which they beautifully redeveloped in 2004 after acquiring a 99-year lease.

Bravely, perhaps, the Gabriels decided they would not take one-night bookings at Hatari. They didn’t want people to use the lodge as a convenient stopover on arrival in Tanzania before heading on to more celebrated parts of the country. They felt Arusha National Park deserved a minimum of three nights, and they have been thoroughly vindicated. Many of their clients stay up to a week, taking in a couple of days at other camps in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, which command stunning views across the Kenyan border to the sacred mountain of Ol Donyo Orok. Thanks to the success of Hatari Lodge, Arusha National Park has become the first stage of a novel northern Tanzania circuit that also includes Mkomazi Game Reserve and the coast.

“We’re by no means trying to compete with the Serengeti or Selous,” Gabriel says. “It wouldn’t make sense as they’re completely different places. Arusha National Park hosts three very distinctive habitats, which is why it’s such a fantastic place. All really require a day each. First, there’s the pristine ‘Lord of the Rings’ rainforest, through which you can walk or drive to reach a small crater two-thirds of the way up Mount Meru. Then there are the Momella lakes, and lastly the Ngurdoto Crater, where Tanzania National Parks have given Hatari exclusive trekking rights on the eastern rim.” Having visited all three habitats with Gabriel, and seen barely a soul, I would jump at the chance to return.

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Wherever you go in Arusha National Park, magnificent peaks or vistas seem to be around every corner. At first light, and for a couple of hours after, the stunning summit of Kilimanjaro, some 50km away, is clearly visible before clouds habitually envelop it. However, it’s the imposing eastern facade of Mount Meru (4566m), Tanzania’s second-highest mountain, which is the park’s dominating feature. Nowhere is it better seen than from Hatari, which currently lies in the park’s so-called buffer zone. Later in 2007, this zone is due to be incorporated into the park, increasing Arusha’s size from 280 to 500 square kilometres. Hatari will be the sole lodge or camp inside the park for at least the next five years, as the park’s management committee have recently decided to ban any development until that time.

That’s of course a great selling point for both Hatari and Arusha National Park. The lodge has just nine rooms, and with Arusha town emitting a mere trickle of day-trip visitors, Hatari residents have the park pretty much to themselves. Gabriel reports that, of the 30,000 or so people who try to climb Mount Kilimanjaro each year, only a handful realise that this restful haven is on their doorstep. However, a greater percentage of the 8000 trekkers who attempt the Mount Meru ascent take advantage of Hatari’s obvious assets.

Although Arusha possesses no lion, it does have as many as 2800 buffalo, 180 elephant and 450 giraffe. There are also five different species of monkey, including an unusually high concentration of 800 black-and-white mountain colobus with their luxuriantly bushy white tails. On the Momella lakes, where Hatari clients can canoe, there’s plenty of birdlife, as well as a large population of pythons, one of which once swam out to meet Gabriel and a client. It rested its head on the rim of their canoe before Gabriel gently flicked it off with his paddle. Eventually settling on a nearby rock, it relaxed while the client, who happened to be a photographer, took some remarkable shots. There’s never a shortage of photo opportunities. On one of my morning game drives with Gabriel, an impressive martial eagle allowed us to observe it from as close as 15 feet for almost twenty minutes. For whatever reason, the wildlife is extremely relaxed in Arusha.

So too is Hatari, despite its name meaning ‘danger’ in Kiswahili. In truth, the lodge took its name from the title of an Oscar-nominated movie starring John Wayne. It was actually the home of one of the movie’s other stars, Hardy Kruger. The German actor bought the surrounding farm, the same area where the film was shot in 1960-61, and kept it for 13 years. Incidentally, the lodge was owned in the early years of the 20th century by another celebrated German, Margaret Trappe, so Gabriel has completed the line of succession. Considering his family’s joy here, I can’t imagine a time when they’d ever hand over the reigns.