The last great Wilderness?

Great news for Kafue and Kafue lovers! African Parks will soon be taking over the running of Kafue National Park. They are a non-profit conservation organisation taking on the responsibility for rehabilitation and management of protected areas in conjunction with government and local communities (www.africanparks.org)

Fantastic work has been done in Central Africa and Kafue can only thrive under their umbrella

A good road from Lusaka to Kafue, only lacks speed restriction signs. Once in the park 80 prevails

A lovely flock of southern crowned cranes near the road edge

Hook bridge was being rebuilt but construction stopped 2 years past due to non-payment. The temporary bridge runs alongside

We didn't expect such a large Kafue river after being told the rains failed

The spinal road south, 5 years young, joining the south to the central region

Some water in a riverbed. Should be good for game viewing

Amazingly they don't follow you into camp but it's fun and games spraying the vehicle

A magnificent Natal Mahogany provides shade throughout the day

This camp site comes in second (best) to the site we had in the Okavango Delta some years ago

No time to waste, as soon as camp is up, the fishing rods are in the water

and I go exploring...what a beautiful stretch of water for a camp

This quickly becomes my favourate 'anytime' spot

What is it about a fire? The zambians build fires slightly differently and boy they work!

A first of the 4 species to catch in the Kafue, a silver barbel

A hard day at the office, the life of a fisherman....

Early morning sun sneaking through the Island foliage

Our resident giant kingfisher on the lookout

I'm noticing my 'thing' this holiday is 'reflections'

I wrongly identified this roller as a european but on closer inspection, it is a racket-tailed roller, how exciting!

A game drive shows just how dry the interior is, and on top of it, bush fires are started, to 'encourage green shoots so the game will come'....

... but unfortunately with no ground water (failed rainy season), the grass won't shoot. I hope with the African Parks taking over management, unnecessary burning will stop

4.5km downstream of Kasabushi we find the rapids, a lovely spot to explore

Tsetsi fly are a plague, but once away from the vehicle and close to the river, they subside

Relatively fresh elephant dung, the whole palm fruit is undigested

Checking out the elephant footprints in the mud

Back at camp, John tries a different spot for fishing and hooks a big barbel which goes around a rock when reeling in. He wades out to release the fish....and this comes swimming by a few minutes later

I decide to go hunting for smallfry

At last! A Bohm's bee eater, what a beauty

And find stunning reflections

Camp/lodge owners (right) Libby and Andy come for a braai and we ask fellow overlanders to join (left). Incidently, we met this couple at a filling station in Nata on our travels through Botswana. Never thought we'd be camping together 2 weeks later, such a small world

A fishing expedition by boat yields a silver barbel and spotted bream, no luck with a pike though 1 was seen chasing the spoon

Its cooler at night now and the mornings misty

Out early for a game drive, this place is magical. There are few true wild places left, I think this is one of them

A male Kudu sprints ahead of us

and a young Puku is surprised to see us

This giant kingfishers isn't perturbed though. Patience and observation is a wonderous thing. Pretty soon impala, puku, warthog, bushbuck, a troupe of baboons, hamerkop, malachite kingfisher and greenbacked heron arrive

Watching baboons is quite fascinating. The young ones run about playing and drinking while the older males take up positions around the perimeter, very casuallly, and keep watch until the females and youngsters have moved off before they in turn drink and move off. This large male was the last to go, he is probably the leader

We come home to find this small croc sunning himself on John's fishing rock

A reed comorant

One evening we take a boat ride along the most beautiful river we've ever been on

Andy is a skilled skipper and know his stretch of river well, we travel down and up the rapids perfectly

One river, many facets

We come to a pod of hippos spread accross the river. Andy is extremely mindful of them. We hover in the current until they move over and then rush through to minimise stressing them

Spurwinged geese on the wing. I hope I've done justice to this magnificent stretch of Kafue river

A drive to Hippo pools loop for breakfast

This could be an immature bateleur

The lovely hippo pools, now where are those lions we've been told about?

We have to cross this gulley, hoping we don't have to go through a bush fire. Our Ford Ranger is proving to be a fine non-4x4 vehicle

We do have to drive through the bush fire (hearts in our mouths) and then find another gulley, way worse than the first one. John's out and scouting a new route, I'm inside scouting lions!

And then another obstacle, a huge tree fallen over the track. Now what, we can't go back? A quick investigation and we bundubash through a grove of small trees that bend under us. Poor Ranger. By now breakfast and lions are furthest from our minds, we just want to get back to the comfort of the spinal road. This illustrates the lack of maintenance by the parks board. We were told this loop is used by all the lodges in the area. Maybe a game vehicle is better equipped to drive these conditions