Having heard that the north of the park was the best place to visit we headed towards McBrides Camp. The road from Fringilla Farm to the north of the park was not the best although they are doing roadworks so maybe in time it will be ok.
Travelling through the north of the park to McBrides we were quite disappointed, there was barely an animal to be seen and a lot of the vegetation was burnt out or at best extremely dry. Reviews rave about McBrides, but again we were disappointed. Yes it is a great bush camp near the river, but you are probably 200m from the river and there is tall grass between it and camp. They have cleared it in front of the dining area but they need to clear it in front of the camp as well. The showers were hot but a little bit of TLC wouldn’t go astray. I also got bitten on my hand by a damn tsetse fly, so maybe that doesn’t help my thoughts of the place. We heard only a few hippos during the night, but a leopard left its scat and footprints not far from our campsite so there are definitely animals about.
Not wanting to give up completely on the park we headed towards the centre of the park and stayed at Mukambi Lodge for 2 nights. This is a great campsite on the river. Each site has its own thatched shelter and a fire pit. There is a communal kitchen, hot showers and a resident hippo. The hippo came through camp one afternoon, drank from one of the taps and then grazed not far from our tent until after dinner. He also comes and sits around the restaurant and reception area regularly.
There still was not a lot of game to be seen, but there was a lot more than in the north. We did a night drive and managed to see a really big male leopard about 5 metres from our car which was pretty cool. We also saw puku, impala, elephant, bushbuck, warthog, defassa waterbuck, hartebeest, crocodile, baboon, vervet monkey, hippo and kudu. I heard a lion during the night so they definitely exist there. I think South Luangwa is a better option than Kafue for both the animals and the landscape although Kafue definitely has less visitors.
