South Luangwa

We continued our scenic drive from Luambe to South Luangwa National Park. We checked out Wildlife Camp but we were not allowed to park the car on the grass which meant we would be camping in the dust and it was full of overland trucks. Next we took a look at Croc Valley Camp and this is where we ended up staying 3 nights. Our campsite was grassed, shady and right on the river’s edge with a great view both up and down the river. From the comfort of our chairs we could watch hippo, the elephants drinking, eating and crossing the river as well as a variety of other wildlife as they came down to drink. (The first 3 photos below were taken from in front of our tent). The camp is an excellent place with a bar, restaurant and pool and frequent visits from the elephants and hippo. Each day we were there the elephants would visit at one time or another, either a male alone or a family group that included a baby. As you can see in the photos below the elephants ate right around our tent, both during the day and night – and at night they kept waking us up! One night they even came into the bar until they were scared away. They look so cute and placid but you have to keep remembering these are wild animals and will trample you in an instant – in fact a woman was killed by an elephant in the rice fields nearby just a few days earlier. Unfortunately some people staying in camp seemed to think they were like pets and walked to within a few metres of them, just asking for trouble.

South Luangwa National Park was quite a nice park although we did not see the same concentration of game as we did further north, but it is definitely worth a visit. One of the highlights was finding a leopard eating a kill in a tree. The other was stumbling upon a lioness who in the morning tried to take on a waterbuck and then in the afternoon chased an impala and then found a buffalo who was weak and stuck in the mud. We sat there for some time watching the lion and buffalo eye each other off. The buffalo ever so slowly struggled out of the mud and once out the lion attempted numerous times to move in. At times they circled each other with the lion just waiting for a moment to attack, which it did once but failed. After about an hour unfortunately a game vehicle turned up, got on the radio and within minutes there were 10-15 vehicles surrounding the poor animals. The game vehicles harassed the animals, moving around constantly whenever one of the animals moved. In the end the lion half gave up and the buffalo managed to get out of the open and into the bushes. From then on it was impossible to see what was happening as they moved further into the bush. The lion probably won eventually if it had the patience, if not, the buffalo would surely be someone’s meal before long as it definitely was not well.

South Luangwa also has the Thornicroft Giraffe which is a lot smaller than the other giraffes. We did a night drive that was pretty uneventful, although we did see 2 porcupines which we have never seen before, well we have seen a dead one but I don’t think that counts. Our game sightings included: