Countries Visited » 2Taylors

North Luangwa & Luambe National Parks

Posted by Elizabeth at 4:58 pm

Aug 212011

We filled our car with diesel at Kakalantekwe which is the village on the main road at the turn off to Kapishya. The owner of Kapishya gets his fuel here and phoned them to order our fuel so we thought it should be ok even if you do buy it from plastic containers. There are definitely no fuel stations in this northern part of Zambia, so the locals have an “arrangement” with the truck drivers, which we think means the truck drivers’ siphon off part of their fuel to sell to the locals and then the locals sell it on. The diesel was cheaper than the fuel stations and we haven’t had a problem with it. I guess you do what you need to.

We entered North Luangwa National Park and took the road down past Buffalo Camp and back up to the pontoon. The road in goes down the escarpment and is a little rough, but was perfectly fine in the dry. There are very few roads through the park so the options are pretty limited. There is not a lot of game to be seen here, but we decided we would take the scenic route down to South Luangwa rather than sticking to the boring tar. We did though manage to see puku for the first time this trip as well as elephant, zebra, hippo, impala, kudu, baboon, warthog, bushbuck, waterbuck, reedbuck, crocodile, buffalo and squirrel.

To exit the park you need to cross the Luangwa River via a pontoon. First you need to cross about 150m of sandy river bed. You then arrive at a ramp thing made of small wooden logs. The pontoon is made up of metal drums with some wooden planks on top with folding ramps on either end to allow you to drive on and off. It is hand propelled by pulling on a steel rope suspended across the river. The passengers must get out of the car whilst the car is driven on to it, which wasn’t too bad and then the driver must also get out. You then stand on the planks whilst you cross the river and they did not ask for any payment which was a surprise.

We spent the night at Chifundu Camp right next to the pontoon. It is in a lovely spot, right on the river edge with hippos in the river in front of you. The showers and toilets are quite good and they even heated some water for us and filled the drum that supplied the shower. After dinner we had an elephant come quite close to our car. As the nearest campers were a few hundred metres away I was a little nervous but the elephant just ate and walked through the bushes around us and left us alone. During the night we heard hippos and a leopard numerous times. Early in the morning we could hear a lion to our right, another one across the river and what sounded like several lions to our left all roaring at the same time – very cool. (The other campers saw them and said there were 10 of them).

We then headed for Luambe National Park. First our GPS told us to take the road along the riverfront, but after a few kilometres we were stopped and told this was a hunting area and we needed to go back and take the other road past the airport (read dirt strip). We had been having issues with our GPS for some time and it decided that now was the time that it was going to completely die, right when there are no signs and numerous tracks to follow. Luckily we have a GPS receiver and software to enable us to use it via the laptop, so we pulled that out and I spent the next bit of time trying to remember how to use it. Eventually we sorted it out and headed off in the right direction. The drive is quite scenic, winding through trees, a few animals and numerous dry river crossings. It is not though something I would like to do in the wet, particularly as some of the rivers had quite steep entry or exit points that would not be fun in the mud.

The park is free to transit through but we decided to break the journey and spend the night there. It is a small park with very few roads for game drives, but we did see more puku, impala, waterbuck, elephant, hippo, baboon and squirrels. We spent the night at Luangwa Wilderness Lodge which is also in a lovely spot right on the river edge. Directly in front of us there would have been 200 hippos all making one hell of a noise, making a peaceful night’s sleep impossible. The shower was hot and had plenty of water, a real luxury. The camp cook baked an enormous loaf of bread for us which was lovely.

Unfortunately there are tsetse flies everywhere in this area (although not in the camps) and once again I was bitten, this time several bites on both my feet. I ended up with both feet red, hot, extremely itchy, swollen and painful for a few days – not much fun. If it is any reassurance I was told that someone did their PHD and determined that none of the flies there carry sleeping sickness. Once again Wayne barely got a bite and did not react whatsoever to them. To say I am now paranoid about any fly in the car is an understatement!

South Luangwa

Posted by Elizabeth at 6:05 pm

Aug 242011

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:

buffalo	zebra	puku	warthog
hippo	elephant	kudu	crocodile
leopard	lion	waterbuck	Thornicroft giraffe
impala	hyena	genet	vervet monkey
white tailed mongoose	baboon	bushbuck	porcupine

Lusaka

Posted by Elizabeth at 8:06 pm

Aug 262011

At the last minute we decided we would visit Kafue National Park before we ventured back into Zimbabwe. Leaving Croc Valley in South Luangwa we made our way towards Lusaka. Once again we took the scenic route, travelling via Petauke rather than the more popular route through Chipata. It probably took us about the same time, but was a shorter distance and we did not have to deal with trucks, buses and potholes. It was a pleasant drive along a bush track through villages and over dry river beds. We stopped on the way at Luangwa Bridge Camp which is fine for an overnight stop with hot showers and free firewood but it was quite dusty.

From there we headed into Lusaka to stock up on money, fuel and food. We have been spoilt for so long now with cheap, fresh veges from the markets and reasonably priced food that it was a rude shock to venture into the supermarket and see the prices! The veges in the first supermarket we tried were terrible and expensive, as was the meat. We found reasonable products at Shoprite in the end, but the prices still hurt!

Food and money replenished we needed to find a tyre place as we had a very slow leak in one of our tyres. Finding the auto repair and spares street (Freedom Way) we picked out one of the numerous tyre shops and they proceeded to sort our tyre for us. For the total sum of $4 they took the tyre off, eventually found the hole, plugged it and put the tyre back on – definitely not worth the hassle of doing it ourselves (which we could have easily done as we have a repair kit). Our driver side mirror broke when a twig flung back and hit it so next mission was to try and find a place to replace the mirror. There are heaps of glass places there but we could not find one who could cut the mirror to size so we still have a cracked mirror.

Our tasks completed we headed out of town to Fringilla Farm for the night. This is a lovely, huge farm where you can camp for $5 each in a shaded, grassed area surround by the farm. There are hot showers and free wifi internet in reception. The farm has a restaurant, butchery (where we bought some excellent steak), I think a dairy and they make fresh bread, some of which the owner gave us to take with us and was very nice (we must be looking poor these days!) Next stop Kafue.

Kafue National Park

Posted by Elizabeth at 8:20 pm

Aug 292011

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.

Mana Pools

Posted by Elizabeth at 6:21 pm

Sep 032011

After stocking up and spending the night at Pioneer Camp in Lusaka we headed for the Zimbabwe border. Neither of us were particularly looking forward to the border crossing at Chirundu as we had heard it was busy and were likely to get hassled. What a pleasant surprise we had! Chirundu is a one stop border post so you do everything to exit Zambia and enter Zimbabwe all in the one building rather than 2 separate borders and numerous buildings to find. The one stop building is actually on the Zimbabwe side and the Zambian buildings are still there, just not in use. There were heaps of trucks parked but when we entered the building there was not a soul there – could we be that lucky? There were also clearly marked counters and even a sign telling you what order to do things in – both of us were stunned! We quickly completed everything with no hassles whatsoever, not even a problem with Interpol which we had heard horror stories about and were out of there quite quickly. If only other borders could be so simple. When we got back to our car the damn baboons had got on the roof of our car, undone an ocky strap, unclipped the lid of our washing bucket and taken it off and then went through everything in the bucket. Nothing was missing but they are a nuisance.

So the border crossing sorted it was on to Mana Pools. We arrived at the gate to be told we needed a permit however the office was only a few kilometres away so it was no problem. This permit is a free one, is handwritten and we are not quite sure what its purpose is but anyway it seemed to make everyone happy and we entered the park headed for Nyamepi Camp.

The road in is not the best as it is badly corrugated and there is not much to see on the way in but it was more than worth it. Nyamepi Camp is situated along the banks of the Zambezi River with shaded campsites, hot water showers and flush loos. The camp was fantastic. Just about every animal we saw whilst driving walked right past us whilst we were in camp, most of them just a few metres from us. We had buffalo that in the end became quite annoying as they would frequently walk within metres of us making us get up and move until they had meandered past. The hyenas would also walk past us several times each night, but on one particular night after we had had a barbecue they were coming to our camp every few minutes and this time not walking past but heading straight towards us and the barbecue until we shone the torch at them and they diverted away. Elephants visited every day walking within metres of us as did warthog, kudu, baboons, impala and once even an eland came within a couple of metres of us which was very surprising seeing as they are near impossible to get a photo of as they run away. We had a hippo that came and ate very noisily right next to our tent every night. During the night we heard lions, hyenas, hippos and elephants. After 4 nights though we were both somewhat sleep deprived as we never got a sound night’s sleep!

Whilst there aren’t a great deal of roads to drive on around the camp you barely need to as most of the game walks right past you in camp. The highlight would have to be finding a pack of Wild Dogs for the first time on our whole trip. They were very lazy though and just laid in the shade. We have only seen Wild Dog one other time in Botswana last year so it was pretty cool. Our game sightings included: impala, baboon, kudu, buffalo, zebra, warthog, elephant, waterbuck, hyena, vervet monkey, hippo, eland, crocodile and wild dog.

Mana Pools is definitely worth a visit. It is not expensive as your park entry ($70 total including the car) lasts 7 days so the longer you stay the cheaper it gets. The campsites are $100 on the river or $20 per person back from the river. We had campsite 19 which is back from the river yet we had a clear view of the river in both directions and were probably only 50 metres from the riverbank. It was a perfect place to relax for a few days and watch the world go by.