Hilton Kotze Safari Blog

Busanga plains of Northern Kafue

Our next stop was The Busanga plains of northern Kafue. What a place ,it’s a very scenic drive from Lufupa up north all along the Kafue and lufupa rivers, saw lots of game and swatted many tsetse flies.

I must say that the tsetse flies only live in the woodland areas ,once we hit the bottom part of the busanga plains there were no more flies.

The plains are roughly the size of the Sabi sand reserve ,about ,70 000 hectares of open grass land with dotted islands ranging form the size of large termite mounds to islands of 1 km x 800m wide. It floods for 6months of the year then from about June starts dying up and leaves these open grass lands were you can see for miles and miles.

The open plains with small islands of Busanga

Busanga is truly a photographers paradise. The place is teeming with game , as the plains dry up little rivers and streams are left and all the game congregates around it.

Herds of Rhone ,sable puku and letchwe were all over the place and of course the predators literally falling out the trees.

Rhone antelope on the Plains

The predators have learned to climb trees in the wet season to get out of the water,so it is not uncommon to see lions in trees here.

Busanga pride male

The Busanga plains is a definite must for any photographer, tons of birds and wild life, the sad thing is that you only really have a 4 – 5 month window period to go ,July through to Nov ,the plains are totally inaccessible in the wet season.

spur winged duck

I must say that the Busanga plains is a very special place if you are a birder, nature lover or wildlife photographer it is a must

Sunrise on the Busanga Plains

Tags: Busanga plains, Kafue national park, photographic, photography, safari, wildlife, Zambia

Zambia ,Kafue national park

The next leg of our trip takes us to  kafue national park some 225000 square km big ,it is an hour and a half’s flight from Livingston into central Africa , you literally fly the hole time over bush veld, not one town just un-spoilt bush.

Vic falls leaving Livingston

We landed at Lufupa camp , our first stop in Kafue. It’s a lovely semi luxury tented bush camp situated on the confluence of the lufupa and Kafue rivers, more or less in the central part of Kafue. I say semi luxury as there is no electricity , there is however lights and hot water powered by solar pannels and camera and laptops can be charged at the office from the generator which runs while guests are our on drive. Although there are no air cons the evenings were not hot as there is a constant breeze off the water that blows through the tent ,I found it very comfortable even though we were there in the hottest time of the year (oct)

The mighty Kafue river at sunset

The activities are mixed between game drives and boat cruises .The size of the Kafue and Lufupa rivers is mind blowing ,this is definitely an undiscovered secret of Africa. A great advantage in Kafue is that you can follow animals off road, some thing not often possible in national parks.

The rivers are at times 80 -100m wide and teeming with game ,  from the boat there is brilliant birding with tons of African fin foot, malachite kingfishers ,half collared kingfishers ,African skimmers ,western banded snake eagles just to mention a few, there is also the lovely senic images of sunset that get imprinted in your brain.

sunset silhouette on the Kafue river

Game viewing from the boat was also good with leopard elephant hippos crocs and various antelope sightings.

dominant male lion in Lufupa area

The game drives were interesting from the point that you had to fight off the tsetse flies for most part of the drive, this can be some what annoying, but we had good game viewing , saw Rhone antelope eland elephants and lion.

Next we are off to the Busanga plains of northern Kafue

Tags: Add new tag, Kafue national park, Kafue river, Lufupa camp, photographic, photography, safari, wildlife, Zambia