Wildlife Camp -> Mfuwe -> South Luangwa National Park
Distance & time taken
41 km
4 hrs
The Wildlife Camp, Mfuwe, South Luangwa (www.wildlifezambia.com)
+/-6km from the village of Mfuwe on the banks of the Luangwa river
Trip Notes
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| Thornicroft's Giraffe - only found in eastern Zambia |
Zambian park fees are pretty expensive & we felt ripped off as "self-driver's" as you don't get the benefit of being a resident of SADC. Park entry is $20 for SADC residents but $30 for International & Self Drive - you are then charged a further $15 to take your won vehicle in. This needs to be addressed as with the state of the Rand, it is going to make it less lucrative for South Africans to travel to Zambian parks. So all in, we had to fork out $75 for the day - as compared to Kruger Park charges of SADC R140 & International visitors R280 with no vehicle fee.
After swallowing the bitter pill, we headed out (they also have no map of the park). We fortunate though, to see a lioness in her den with 3 young cubs near the Mfuwe lodge. She had decided to locate her den right next to the Mfuwe Lodge which is only a short distance from the main gate. We decided to return a little later as there was a scrum of safari vehicles jostling for the best position for their guests.
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| White-Browed Coucal |
- White-browed Coucal
- Red-throated Twinspot
As we travelled further into the park, we saw a number of herds of elephant, impala, zebra, giraffe, puku (local antelope species) & waterbuck as well a numerous hippos & crocs. The baboons (yellow baboons) here are smaller than those back home. In one section of the park that was very flat with few trees, we found a herd of elephant under a tree with a number of the youngsters lying down. Initially we thought that they had a problem but as we watched them, they slowly got to their feet & wandered off into the distance.
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| Saddle-Billed Stork |
We stopped again at the spot where we saw the lioness as there was now no other vehicles nearby. She was still there so we watched her in the shade of the trees with the cubs playing around her. There were also a few vultures in the surrounding trees indicating that she must have made a recent kill to feed her clan.
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| Puku |
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| Yellow-Billed Stork |
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| White-Fronted Bee-Eater |
When we got back to camp, we made brunch & then climbed into our dirty laundry washing as much as we could. As the camp wifi is only available to guests between 12 & 2, we wandered off to reception to try to get our fix which proved to be very frustrating as the wifi signal wasn't very strong & we kept on getting thrown out. Did manage to get some news updates from News24 as well as updating Instagram.
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| Hippos at rest in the Luangwa River - croc keeping a watchful eye from the sandbank |
We relaxed until 16h00 when we were collected for our safari drive. We were in a vehicle with a local Zambian from Chipata as well as 2 ex-Zambians (father & son) from Austin, Texas. We were not let down with game drive as we managed to find a female leopard before sunset & managed to get a number of good photos as she strolled around. The sighting resulting in us missing the sundowner drinks on the bank of the river but it was well worth missing.
The night drive (we were in the park until 20h00) was also pretty successful with us seeing a number of nocturnals - Genet, Civit, Pels Fishing Owl & Hyena. Got back to camp around 20h30 & headed to bed pretty smartly as the chilly night air on the drive brought our body temp down.
Costs for the day
| Accommodation | Wildlife Camp |
US$20,00
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| Safari drive fees | Wildlife Camp |
US$100,00
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| Park fees | South Luangwa NP |
US$75,00
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