Riddled with large slow moving rivers, home to many hippos...

Remote Safaris in the Kafue National Park

Kafue National Park is the oldest park in Zambia and one of the largest parks in the whole World. The real beauty of a luxury safari holiday here in this wilderness is its remoteness and true authentic African spirit and atmosphere.

The park is roughly the same size as Wales and its many rivers create a lush diversity of habitats. The rivers create a seasonal floodplain that attracts water birds in their squawking thousands successful fishing is enjoyed in many locations by both human visitors and the feathered variety.

The remote Busanga Plains in the north of the park has a permanent wetland, fed by these rivers and streams, which allows excellent water based safari activity in conjunction with superb land based game viewing of huge numbers of plains animals. It goes without saying, of course, that where there is an abundance of these beasts the predators, are never far behind. The Kafue National Park is proud to enjoy thriving populations of majestic lion, leopard and cheetah together with growing numbers of one of Africa’s most elusive predators – the wild dog. The Busanga Plains is a vast watery landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see.

The Lufupa River, enters in the north of the park at an area known as the Busanga Swamp. During the wet season, the swell of additional water flows out in a welcome flood over the Busanga Plains, reaching their height from March to May. When the life giving waters recede once again, a lush green carpet of vegetation is magically revealed. Large herds of hippo are left stranded in shallow pools as during the dry season the waters desert them.

The lush wilderness with its flat grassland plains sprinkled with islands of date palms, sausage trees and fig trees that are enjoyed by herds red lechwe and puku, as well as buffalo, zebra and wildebeest together with their hunters in the natural course of life and death. The riverine woodlands of the south of the park sustain a great diversity of wildlife in addition to the more common species antelope Kafue also enjoys many of the rarer species such as roan, sable, eland and oribi.

Knobbly termite mounds are scattered across the flat plains and as well as the teak forests there are vast areas of Miombo woodlands which seasonally erupt into shallow, grassy wetlands known as dambos.

The rivers support an interesting variety of different environments and habitats each encouraging its own speciality of wildlife. At the very heart of the park the Kafue River is a deep flow that moves slowly through tall hardwood lined banks and supports many hippo, stealthy crocodiles and water monitors.

Due to the ungraded condition of many of the roads, Kafue National Park is best accessed by light aircraft onto the many small airstrips. The park has some excellent luxury safari accommodation such as Shumba Camp which lies in the centre of Busanga Plains. With just six luxury tented rooms set high on raised platforms guests enjoy the comforts of an intimate safari camp together with amazing views of the surroundings and excellent game viewing opportunities. Busanga Bush Camp hidden in a dense tree island of sycamore fig trees is a totally intimate experience with the camp only having four well-appointed tented rooms. Camps supply fishing equipment to take full advantage of a quiet few hours’ relaxation on the river bank and professional, knowledgeable guides to ensure the best game viewing experience.

For a safari with a guaranteed volume and variety of game, superb guided activities and exclusive luxury accommodation Kafue National Park is a truly authentic safari experience.