By Roxanne Reid
Imagine having Kruger National Park or the Serengeti almost to yourself and you’ll get an idea of why a visit to the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is so extraordinary.
Imagine having Kruger National Park or the Serengeti almost to yourself and you’ll get an idea of why a visit to the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia is so extraordinary.
I’ve heard it called one of the greatest wildlife sanctuaries in the world and it’s the sole reason we ventured to Zambia – though it won’t be the only reason we return. (Find out why we loved Zambia so much.)
And because it’s such a long hard slog to get there by car (I’ll tell you about the nitty-gritties in the next post), you don’t get many people venturing there independently.
In fact, most visitors we saw were well-heeled foreigners who had flown in and were being driven around by knowledgeable guides from one of the upmarket (read expensive) lodges inside the park. With six to ten visitors in one vehicle, it made the roads seems far less cluttered than those of a park like Kruger. In our six days there, we saw fewer than ten other independent drivers in the park.
And because it’s such a long hard slog to get there by car (I’ll tell you about the nitty-gritties in the next post), you don’t get many people venturing there independently.
In fact, most visitors we saw were well-heeled foreigners who had flown in and were being driven around by knowledgeable guides from one of the upmarket (read expensive) lodges inside the park. With six to ten visitors in one vehicle, it made the roads seems far less cluttered than those of a park like Kruger. In our six days there, we saw fewer than ten other independent drivers in the park.
Crawshay's zebra
South Luangwa is dry woodland, watered by the winding Luangwa River and its oxbow lakes. The bush is unspoilt, with lush riverine vegetation that includes giant red mahogany, Natal mahogany and African ebony trees along the river, although mopane dominates and there are also striking baobabs here and there.
In the dry season (winter), wildlife congregates at the water so you’re likely to spot elephants, buffaloes, leopards. There are also endemic subspecies like Thornicroft’s giraffe, with their white legs and faces, and Crawshay’s zebra, which don’t have the brownish shadow-stripe of their cousins, the Burchell’s. They were pretty special for us because they were new, something we hadn’t seen before in South Africa, Namibia or Botswana.
In the dry season (winter), wildlife congregates at the water so you’re likely to spot elephants, buffaloes, leopards. There are also endemic subspecies like Thornicroft’s giraffe, with their white legs and faces, and Crawshay’s zebra, which don’t have the brownish shadow-stripe of their cousins, the Burchell’s. They were pretty special for us because they were new, something we hadn’t seen before in South Africa, Namibia or Botswana.
Puku - a 4x4 impala
There are puku too, lots of them. Similar to impala in colour, though with shorter horns, they’re also rougher-haired, which makes them look like 4x4 versions.
Since some of the roads hug the river, we saw many groups of waterbuck and lots of hippos and crocs lazing in the river or on the banks. We even saw a hippo lumbering down the middle of the road as he crossed from one lagoon to another part of the river. The river bends back on itself regularly, so if it’s first on your left, it later pops up again on your right.
We enjoyed watching small groups of elephant, though we haven’t yet determined whether their small size is because all the big ones were poached in the 1970s and 1980s, or in fact if this is a smaller forest elephant subspecies. When you’re used to Kruger-sized jumbos, it’s strange to see what looks to be a youngster with an even smaller baby in tow.
Since some of the roads hug the river, we saw many groups of waterbuck and lots of hippos and crocs lazing in the river or on the banks. We even saw a hippo lumbering down the middle of the road as he crossed from one lagoon to another part of the river. The river bends back on itself regularly, so if it’s first on your left, it later pops up again on your right.
We enjoyed watching small groups of elephant, though we haven’t yet determined whether their small size is because all the big ones were poached in the 1970s and 1980s, or in fact if this is a smaller forest elephant subspecies. When you’re used to Kruger-sized jumbos, it’s strange to see what looks to be a youngster with an even smaller baby in tow.
An elephant wades among Nile cabbage for an afternoon drink
Apart from lions and some of our best ever sightings of leopard, we also took pleasure in warthogs, impala, bushbuck and lots of yellow baboons - another species we don’t see in South Africa. They’re slightly smaller and lighter in colour than our Chacma baboon. And what a relief to be able to stop and watch troops that were still so wild they avoided humans instead of mobbing them, as they do back home in Cape Town’s Table Mountain National Park. Watching loving interactions between parents and babies, and far more rambunctious exchanges between the younger baboons and their environment was endlessly entertaining.
Birding was good in July too, with lots of water birds: sacred ibis, fish eagle, open bill, saddlebill, brownheaded kingfisher, yellowbilled stork, whitecrowned lapwing, hamerkop. We were also lucky enough to see a huge colony of whitefronted bee-eaters taking flight together in a multi-coloured display. I’m told, however, that the best time for birding is later in the year, when the summer migrants swell the numbers to some 400 species.
Birding was good in July too, with lots of water birds: sacred ibis, fish eagle, open bill, saddlebill, brownheaded kingfisher, yellowbilled stork, whitecrowned lapwing, hamerkop. We were also lucky enough to see a huge colony of whitefronted bee-eaters taking flight together in a multi-coloured display. I’m told, however, that the best time for birding is later in the year, when the summer migrants swell the numbers to some 400 species.
Yellow-billed stork
One day we went north to Lion Plain in the Nsefu sector of the park, where the gate guard told us we might find lions, eland and the endemic Cookson’s wildebeest. Unluckily, we didn’t find any of these, but we did see quite a few groups of elephant, buffalo, kudu, waterbuck and the ubiquitous puku. And we were glad we went because it was a pretty road that hugged the river, even crossed the dry riverbed at one point, before continuing north to an ebony forest and open grasslands which were very different from what we’d seen further south.
In the next post: getting there, roads, maps, GPS and other need-to-know stuff.
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In the next post: getting there, roads, maps, GPS and other need-to-know stuff.
Like it? Pin this image!
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Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
