South Luangwa
Trip Start
Apr 24, 2012
1
89
144
Trip End
Ongoing
South Luangwa National Park, Zambia
Sunday, August 26, 2012
As the park fees are rather steep, we only went into the park on one day. The arrangement is such that once you have paid – you can enter the park as many times as you like, with 6 pm as the cut off time.
The park eastern boundary is the Luangwa River with several private Lodges along its banks. It makes for lovely viewing as there is lots of water in the area and one can follow the river. It is probably the best park we have been to since the start of our trip. The scenery reminds one of Mana Pools (according to Christine) with wetlands and greens. Puku and Impala seem to love each others company as they stick together most the time. Buffalo, Kudu, Bush buck, Wildebeest, Zebra and Water Buck was the other antelope we saw. Elephant, Hippo and Crocs, and a variety of bird life in and around the river. We saw around eight Giraffe, some being young ones. Unlike the baboons we see in SA, they have a golden colour in Luangwa, smaller than the ones back home. The biggest excitement and high light of our visit to Luangwa park was the Leopard! Not one or two……..three Leopard! One up a tree with a kill, one on the ground stalking an impala and one on the ground not even 2 meters from us. We could not have asked for more.
We went into the park twice. The second time with the aim to see the lions and the cubs. As we only had 2 hours before the gate closed for day visitors, we unfortunately did not get to see them. Next time.
The other wonderful thing about South Luangwa is the beautiful big trees. We loved our stay at Croc Valley and would recommend a visit to this park to everyone.
