The Busanga Plains Remotest Kafue
Author: Laura Waite of Green Safaris Photos: Dana Allen / Wilderness Safaris
T
he remote Busanga Plains lie in the far north of the Kafue National Park. This ever shifting seasonal floodplain is a hive of activity for all creatures great and small, from tiny malachite kingfishers to enormous grumpy buffalos. A biosphere, which represents a unique area in Zambia for game viewing. Visitor numbers and indeed camp numbers are low but those who do make the journey are rewarded with an experience unlike any other in Zambia and often come away having left a piece of their heart behind. Between November and May the plains are inaccessible due to the influx of the summer rains. The channels of the Lufupa River and the many other crisscrossing tributaries of the Kafue River fill and then burst their banks spilling water over the floodplain and turning it into a treacherous swampland. Only the ‘island’ outposts dotted with wild date palms, fig and sausage trees remain above the waterline.
Mr Busanga
time of year belong to the resident wildlife and the few hardy souls who remain in the camps keeping an eye on everything over the closed season. Any required movements for humans are by mokoro or on foot. Life in the swamps in the ‘green season’ is tough, the conditions extreme. The lechwe with their long and relatively narrow marsh adapted hooves don’t have much trouble. The hippos and crocodiles also get an easy life. They roam freely after having been confined, at the end of the dry season, to just the few remaining pools or driven out all together. In the ‘green season’, for the predators in particular, the sheer amount of water present makes moving around and hunting extremely hard work. It’s a real struggle for survival. As the waters recede in April a journey into the camps for their custodians becomes a possibility – this is not to say it is by any means easy but it is possible. By June camps are guest ready, but after landing at the airstrip visitors are still highly likely for the next couple of months to use the combination of a vehicle and then a mokoro or motorboat to reach their accommodation.
Cut off from the rest of the world, the plains at this Before the camps open, channels amongst the reeds
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TRAVEL & LEISURE ZAMBIA
