Where to go was a big decision. The range of options was limited to a certain distance from home (up to roughly 1000km, I decided) - we didn't want to be doing too much driving as we had only 10 days to work with.
This still left quite a few choices. The Okavango Delta in Botswana (I've been there before, but would happily go again) and Kruger National Park in South Africa were two possibilities.
Chizarira National Park in Zimbabwe, closer to home, was another maybe.
Mozambique offered Gorongosa Mountain and National Park as well as the Zambezi Delta.
Malawi has Liwonde National Park and Mount Mulanje.
Zambia in particular has a lot to offer; Lochinvar National Park supports tens of thousands of waterbirds (another place I've been, but would definitely go again). Kafue National Park is another place worth seeing. South Luangwa National Park is a fantastic game viewing destination, and this was very strongly considered.
What an excellent selection, and all within roughly 1000km of Harare!
At some point I vaguely remembered seeing a David Attenborough documentary about a fruit bat migration somewhere in central Africa. A quick search told me that the place is Kasanka National Park in northern Zambia, a small park which is nowhere near as famous as the big parks of Southern Africa (Kruger, South Luangwa, etc.).
It didn't take much to convince me this was the place to go, above all the other exciting places - just the simple fact that eight million fruit bats migrate to the Kasanak at the end of every year. What!? Eight million? That's right...
Kasanka is 1050km away from Harare by the route we drove. We avoided the slightly shorter route via the awful border post at Chirundu.
Southern and Central Africa. The red rectangle outlines the map below. |
Click Here for full size. This is the route we drove, starting from Harare. We went through the border post at Kariba, then on to Kasanka National Park in the north. On the way back we spent a few days in the incredible Mana Pools National Park. |
Harare to Lomagundi Lakeside, on the shore of Lake Kariba, about 360km. |
African Harrier-hawk |
African Mourning Dove - worth staying at LL just for this. |
African Openbill at sunrise |
Black-chested Snake-eagle |
A rather bad photograph of a Kurrichane Thrush showing partial leucism of the head feathers |
Female Red-winged Starling |
White-crowned Lapwing |
To be continued...
Part two - Forest Inn
Part three - Kasanka, the Mammals
Part four - Kasanka, the Birds
Part Five - Mana Pools
No comments:
Post a Comment