ZAMBIA | THE NYIKA PLATEAU
The
NYIKA PLATEAU [ WRITER / PHOTO: Robin Pope ]
To many who know Zambia, the name Nyika Plateau evokes a wistful sigh with the comment ‘one for the bucket list’. To those who have visited the Nyika this name conjures up images of misty highlands, steep escarpments cloaked in sub montane forest, open montane grasslands, trout fishing, roaring fires in the grate, always a fresh wind, the sounds of unusual birds singing from the grasslands and forests and the smell of bracken and pine. The Nyika Plateau massif an area of some 4500 square kms straddles the Zambian/Malawi international border, located some 1200kms north east of Lusaka . In geological terms the Nyika is a large plateau which sits at the separation of the Luangwa fault from the African rift valley. The plateau was created by the tectonic movements and erosion cycles that also created the southern rift mountains. The sides of the massif are steep, dissected by deep river valleys, and the lower slopes are covered by Miombo woodland. Above 1800m the miombo declines and is replaced with mixed Protea and Masuku (Uapaka species) and above 2000m, grasslands and bracken briar and heaths predominate across the undulating plateau. The grassland is dissected with stream and river valleys interspersed with montane and sub-montane forest patches. Standing on the edge of the plateau looking west there are magnificent views of the distant Makutu and Mafinga mountains of eastern Zambia. The blues of these distant mountains gets lighter the further one looks. From the eastern edge at the Kasaramba view point, views of Lake Malawi can be glimpsed and to the north east the Livingstone mountains of southern Tanzania are visible on a clear day.
20
TRAVEL & LEISURE | May - Aug 2022
One is really perched close to the junction of the three countries at an elevation of some 2250m (7381 ft). The highest peak on the Nyika is Nganda peak with a height of 2607m (8553 ft) above sea level. The original inhabitants of the countryside surrounding the Nyika were/are the Akafula, later the Phoka-Tumbuka peoples known for their iron smelting skills. It is thought that historically the high Nyika was not extensively settled due to its elevation, temperature and soil type. In the 1940s a portion of the Nyika was declared a forest reserve to protect the isolated endangered remnant Juniper Forest. This wood has the most wonderful fragrance. The grassland extent covering the top of the plateau was rich in wildlife and became a nonhunting area in the 1950s. An experimental plantation of blue gum, pine, and wattle was planted over 522ha. The Malawi Nyika became a National Park in 1965 after independence. The Zambian Nyika originally was an extension of the Northern Lundazi Forest reserve and became a National Park in 1972. I first travelled to the Nyika with my parents and brothers in 1963 and we have repeated this journey many times. It is a journey of
some 1200 kms from Lusaka, requiring a few overnight stops. There is the option of including some of the interesting and worthwhile diversions on the way such as the Luangwa Valley with its wildlife reserves and the Vipya escarpment across the border in Malawi, created by the same tectonic processes which formed the Nyika. The Vipya has extensive forestry plantations and extraordinary granite inselbergs and good birding. There are a few places to stay in the Vipya. Another excellent, although longer, extension to a Nyika journey is Lake Malawi, known evocatively as the Lake of Stars. It is the third deepest freshwater lake in the world. Nyika highland provides a critical water reservoir and catchment for streams and rivers which then flow off the Nyika to the Luangwa valley in the west and Lake Malawi in the east and provides life giving water to farms and people living below. The international border between Zambia and Malawi bisects the Nyika National Parks with 10% of the park lying in Zambian side and 90% on the Malawi side. These two national parks have been amalgamated into a trans-frontier national park, managed by Peace Parks Foundation in partnership with the Departments of Wildlife of Zambia and Malawi. In the 1986 the Pope’s association with the Nyika became more focussed when Robin Pope Safaris undertook the long-term lease of the old government rest house and our tenure there lasted ten years. This rustic eight bed Zambian Rest House overlooks eastern Zambia at an altitude of 2286m (7500 ft). It has a great
