Alan is a renowned Africa expert and has authored many Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the guide to Zambia.
Alan is a renowned Africa expert and has authored many Lonely Planet guidebooks, including the guide to Zambia.
Alan is a renowned Africa expert and authored the Lonely Planet guidebook to Zambia.
Alan has authored the Lonely Planet guide to Zambia.
Kafue National Park is one of the largest parks in Africa. Although, the park is very accessible on a good road from Lusaka, it feels remote and wild. The animals can be quite shy, but you’ll still see loads of wildlife. Four of the Big Five can be found, only rhino is missing.
Kafue has a lot of wildlife. Elephants tend to be shy, but are common. Lion and leopard are easily spotted as well. What makes Kafue a great destination, though, is its wealth of antelope species. Huge herds of red lechwe – in the thousands – can be found in the swamps. Puku, greater kudu, oribi and waterbuck are all common, and the rare roan antelope is present in very sizable herds as well.
The Kafue River and the streams that flow into it are lined with forest and make for a beautiful view on a boat cruise. Away from the rivers, there are patches of miombo woodland and swamps. The vast Busanga Plains are in the far north of the park. You can’t explore these floodplains in the Wet season, but for the rest of the year you can enjoy the wildlife here.
Weather & Climate
Kafue’s tropical location means that daytime temperatures don’t change much throughout the year, except for the rising heat in October just before it rains. The region’s Dry season (May to October) sees the groundwater slowly dry up and keeps the days warm. The Wet season (November to April) gets hot and you can expect afternoon downpours.
You can’t beat the Dry season (May to October) for wildlife watching in Kafue. The movements of the animals are more predictable because they all head for local rivers and waterholes. And who wouldn’t enjoy those sunny days? Busanga Plains can only be visited at this time of year, before they’re cut off by the rains of the Wet season (November to April).
Mike is an award winning wildlife writer, editor of Travel Zambia magazine and author of the Bradt Guide to Southern African Wildlife.
Sleeping giant
4/5
I am always surprised that Kafue seldom crops up in discussions of Africa’s top destinations. The park is vast – at 22,500 sq km, it is Zambia’s largest – and its variety of wildlife competes with any on the continent. The reason...
We stayed 3 nights at the Mawimbi Bush cam and had the camp for ourselves and an extraorinary guide and staff. This park is huge. We unfortunately missed the Busanga plains that were too far away but we just saw 2 other tourist cars in 2...