Kafue National Park

Having left Livingstone behind us, we spent the night surrounded by proteas and orchids, thinking we were much further south in the Highveld again.

We were unsure as to what to see and do next, as the road conditions in all of Zambia were very uncertain. Thus Chris and I decided to head to Choma, where we could find out whether we should head towards Kafue National Park, or towards Lake Kariba depending on how passable the roads were.

We found our answer in the form of the owner of the local hardware store, who informed us that the roads to Lake Kariba were impassable, but that it was possible to go towards Kafue. He also mentioned that the Kafue roads weren’t in great shape, but should be driveable – with a 4X4.

The road to Namwala was tarred, if worn down. However, having passed through Namwala, we found out that the locals had created a two-track through the wetlands running parallel to the main road, as the original road was in a truly shocking condition.

We traversed this two-track for 30 very slow, bumpy and muddy kilometres, finally ending at a real obstacle. The Kafue River. Having thought that the track we were on would lead us to a bridge, we were quite surprised to find the means of crossing the river to be a ferry.

Thus the Rock Rabbit, Chris and I had our first ferry crossing. It was quite something to be on this iron ferry, which had been absorbing the sun’s heat all day and to feel that heat reflected back at you – making you feel that your plastic slops would melt!

Having crossed the Kafue successfully, we found the road to be much improved. Thus we managed to reach our campsite on the banks of the Itezhi-Tezh Lake, just as the sun was setting. And good that we did, as the sunset proved to be one of the most spectacular so far.

Early the next morning we crossed into Kafue National Park, ready to take on the 280km of watchful driving ahead of us. Kafue is HUGE – really, really huge.  The first few hours provided only a few very interesting birds, until we almost decapitated a huge rock python sunning itself across the road. Driving around the corner, admittedly looking for birds in the treetops, we thought the 4m python was a branch lying across the road. Chris reacted by swerving the car onto the embankment, missing the snake by mere centimetres. We quickly did a U-turn, wanting to make sure the reptile was unharmed. We just caught the last few glimpses of it sailing off into the dense underbrush, happily completely unharmed.

Now very much alert, our next “Kafue Special” was a trio of Cheetahs, lazily lolling in the shade of the road. The mother and her two adolescent cubs were very fat off of their last kill and had no interest whatsoever in either us, or the fact that we kept creeping closer to get a better look at them. We thus had a truly spectacular sighting, with no one else around! Rare indeed…

Chris and I decided to leave the park, after our initial plan of spending the night at the Community Campsite was dashed. The camp offered no facilities or amenities whatsoever and for the patch of grass that we would camp on, they wanted to charge us US$ 25,00 per person!

However, this turned out for the best, as we spotted a pack of over 20 Wild Dogs playing on the rainy road in front of us! What a spectacular ending to our “Kafue Specials”.

We’ll be back…