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Obudu, Cross River

6.6689° N, 9.1663° E

GuideFood

The road up to the cattle ranch

A Scottish rancher started a cattle station on the Obudu plateau in 1951 because the weather reminded him of home.

Words Ini Etuk

6 min read

Grassland and hills on the Obudu plateau, with a helipad in the foreground.
The Obudu plateau, around 1,600 metres up on the Cameroon border. A Scottish rancher started a cattle ranch here in 1951 because the climate reminded him of home. Photograph: Ei'eke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

About Obudu

The Obudu plateau rises to about 1,600 metres on the Cameroon frontier, high enough that a Scottish rancher established a cattle ranch here in 1951 because the climate reminded him of home. The grasslands on top are cool and wet; the road up is a series of switchbacks that is itself the reason many people come. The Becheve communities have farmed this escarpment far longer than the ranch has existed.

Everything from Obudu →

The Obudu plateau rises to around 1,600 metres on the Cameroon border, and the road up is a series of switchbacks that is, for a lot of visitors, the actual reason to come.

At the top the grass is wet and the air is cold, and cattle do well in a way they do not lower down. That is what a Scottish rancher noticed in 1951, and the ranch he started is still the thing the plateau is known for.

Hilltop lodges standing on the grassland at Obudu Cattle Ranch.
Photograph: Ei'eke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The cable car was built to move visitors up without the road. It works intermittently. The road, which has been there longer, works.

A cable car running above the escarpment at Obudu.
Photograph: Ei'eke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

If you are going

Getting up
About four hours from Calabar to the foot of the escarpment, then the switchback road. Not a night drive.
What to bring
Warm clothes. The plateau is ten degrees cooler than Calabar and it rains most afternoons.

Who reported this

Ini Etuk

Editor · Calabar

Edits the south-south coverage. Has argued, at length and in print, that the delta is over-reported and under-described.

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