Big Skies & Open Plains of Kafue

Are you a wide, wild, wet river sort of a person – the sort of person who loves to sit in a boat between two distant shores lined with river-loving trees and peopled with river-loving beasts? Does such a landscape fill your soul? It did mine.

Or are you a big-sky, open-plains sort of person – the sort of person who loves to be able to see forever, the antelopes stretching out to infinity and the clouds filling almost all the available space in your vision? Perhaps that’s the kind of landscape that fills your soul. It sure did mine.

But then souls are capacious organs, infinitely receptive when it comes to the sort of places you will remember forever. And you can find these two contrasting beauties in the same week – on the same day if you don’t mind caning it a little – in Kafue National Park in Zambia.

The river came first – and literally, no shred of an exaggeration, within a minute of getting on the boat I was looking at a gorgeous female leopard. She was lying beneath one of those riverside trees and looking back at me with mild interest. It was like being on leopard television.

A little later an African finfoot appeared. This is a truly funky bird, not closely related to any other group. They are notoriously elusive, but this one was more or less flaunting. Once or twice I lost it – all but the huge orange feet, apparently clambering about on the river-side roots by themselves, the rest of the bird invisible against the backdrop.

Kafue is perhaps the world’s best place for antelopes. Antelopes have a thrilling ability to diverge and adapt to subtly different habitats, and this park is full of subtly different habitats. There are 20 different antelope species here; I counted 14 species in a week, especially the gorgeous sable, males with horns that almost make a full semicircle.

But it was the red lechwe – red lechwe in thousands – that dominated once I had left the river and went up onto the Busanga Plain: a place where you can – and often do – see a lion come from a mile off. In this open place, hiding is not easy. The lions know that; so do the lechwe.

One morning I spent three hours with a group of lions. I can still hear the huge sound of their lapping, as they took turns for a post-breakfast drink in a stream a couple of feet from the vehicle. Later on, a young male – his mane just beginning to sprout – lay down in the shade of the vehicle and playfully nibbled the tyres. Keep still, just keep still: these lions are completely relaxed about vehicles and don’t associate them with elevenses.

And then back to camp, back to the endless fascination of this endless plain, with the lechwe making the crowd scenes and a lone male lion, fully adult and sumptuously maned, crossing the plain to seek the shade of one of the tree islands that relieve the openness.

Two impossible landscapes, both filled with impossible creatures. Both are equally capable of filling your soul. Which is the better experience? Only one answer to that: both.

Join us on our wildlife safaris to Kafue National Park in Zambia. To find out more information, contact our team.