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Selous Game Reserve
Size
54,490sq km (21,000sq miles) It is the largest national park in all
of Africa.
Location
Southern Tanzania, flight distance from Arusha.
Getting there
Located in southern Tanzania. Charter or commercial flights from
Arusha or Kilimanjaro Airports through Dar es Salaam.
To Do
Guided driving safaris and Mototboat tours. Picnic and special
interest areas.
Best Time
June-Nov is the best season, avioding the heavy rains.
With tented camps along the banks of the Rufiji River, motor boat
trips are offered as a method of seeing hippos, crocodiles, and
aquatic birds.
The game drives provide great opportunity to see herbivore,
predators and diverse birds. The vast majority of Tanzania's
elephant herd live in one remote stretch of safari wilderness - the
Selous Game Reserve. Stigler's Gorge is one of the park's most
striking features. This gaping chasm channels the frothing
confluence of the Great Ruaha and Rufiji Rivers. After this
bottleneck, the Rufiji swells through the park down to the Indian
Ocean forming a series of small lakes that serve as an important
source of water for the multitude of the plains game. The hinterland
around Lake Tagalala and Beho Beho is some of the most picturesque
in area.
Some distance from Lake Tagalala, whose shape and size is in a
constant state of flux, hidden in a ravine surrounded by lush
vegetation, are the Maji Moto hot springs. In this fascinating area,
waterbuck, southern reed-buck and bushbuck are common. During the
dry season, rare sable antelope, lion and greater kudu frequent the
Lake. Lined with Barassus palms, the muddy Rufiji is the Selous Game
Reserve's main artery.
During the dry season between June and October the river banks
explode in a spectacular flood of the plains animals quenching their
thirst all under the opportunistic eye of crocodile. The reserve is
home to over 350 species of birdlife. ::
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Size
3230 sq km (about 2000 sq miles) for Mikumi Park, but it
forms a part of the Selous Ecosystem, the world’s largest
game reserves.
Location
Southern Tanzania, flight distance from Arusha.
Getting there
Located in southern Tanzania. Charter or commercial flights
from Arusha or Kilimanjaro Airports through Dar es Salaam.
To Do
Guided driving safaris; excellent bird watching with over
400 species.
Best Time
Accessible year around, but recommended for the dry season
(Jun–Nov).
Swirls of opaque mist hide from the advancing dawn. The
first shaft of sun color the fluffy grass heads rippling
across the plain in a russet halo. Confident is the
camouflage of their stripes at this predatory hour, zebras
pose for our pleasure, like ballerinas on stage, heads
aligned, stripes merging, flowing motion. Forming the
northern border of Africa’s biggest game reserve – the vast
Selous – Mikumi is one of the most popular of Tanzania’s
national parks the most accessible part of a 75,000 square
kilometer (about 47,000 square miles) wilderness that
stretches almost to the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The main feature of the park is the Mikumi flood plain,
along with the mountain ranges that border the park on two
sides. Open grasslands dominate in the flood plain,
eventually merging with the Miombo woodland covering the
lower hills. Here, lions survey their kingdom, sometimes
from a perch high in the trees to keep their feet dry when
the rains soak the plain’s sticky black soil. Many other
animals retreat to the Miombo woodlands in the wet season,
where observation towers above the reline offers above the
tree line offer panoramic views of the plain laid out below,
home to formidable herds of buffalo. Mikumi elephants are
more compact than the rest of their Tanzanian cousins, but
still a lot bigger than any Land Rover. The rains swell the
parks bird population to more than 300 species and Eurasian
migrants seek refuge in Mikumi, joining resident’s stars
like the lilac breasted roller.
The parks road network provides visitors with a variety of
easy game drives. Hippo inhabits pools 5 km north of the
main entrance and zebra, giraffe, hartebeest and wildebeest
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Ruaha National Park
Size
10,300 sq km (about 6,400 sq miles), Tanzania's 2nd biggest park.
Location
Central Tanzania, 128 km (about 80 miles) West of Iringa.
Getting there
Charter flights from Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Iringa and Mbeya. Year –
round road access from Dar es Salaam.
To Do
Day walks or hiking safaris through untouched bush country. Game
drives.
Best Time
Best time for predators and large animals is the dry season Jun-Nov,
the wet season offers excellent bird watching and lush wildflowers.
Our game viewing starts the moment we touch down. A pair of giraffe
race beside the airstrip, all legs and neck yet elegant in their
awkwardness. A line of zebra parades across the runway in their wake
while protective elephants guard their young under the shade of a
fat baobab tree.
Wildlife is concentrated along the cascading Great Ruaha River that
is the parks lifeblood. Home to hippo and crocodiles snacking on
schools of fish, it is a flooded torrent after the rains, dwindling
to precious pools surrounded by a blinding sweep of sand in the dry
season. Waterbuck, impala and the worlds most southerly grants
gazelle risk their lives for a sip of its waters a permanent hunting
ground for lion, leopard, jackal, hyena and packs of wild dog – rare
elsewhere. Ruaha’s 8000 resident elephants remain the largest
population of any national park in east Africa, recovering strongly
form ivory poaching in the eighties.
Scouring the vast wilderness of rocky outcrops and wooded hills, you
may see the say kudu’s corkscrew horns gleaming like worn metal
behind a camouflage of thorny thicket. Unique combinations of
animals’ co- exist here – both the greater and lesser kudu, sable
and roan antelope – Ruaha being the only protected area in the world
where the flora and fauna of eastern and southern Africa overlap.
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Udzungwa Mountains
National Park
Size
1990 sq km (about 1240 sq miles)
Location
5 hours (348 km, about 215 miles) from Dar es Salaam; 65 km
(about 40 miles) Southwest of Mikumi.
Getting there
Drive from Dar es Salaam.
To Do
From a 2 hour hike to the waterfall to camping safaris. Combine
with nearby Mikumi or en route to Ruaha.
Best Time
Possible year round although it can be slippery in wet season.
The dry season is Jun –Nov, but be prepared for rain anytime.
The Udzungwa Mountains are almost unearthly. Primeval,
burgeoning with rampant, verdant growth. An enchanted forest of
leafy glades freckled with sunshine, where fungus, lichen, moss
and ferns ingratiate themselves into every damp crevice. It is
at once vivid detail and larger than life: a new variety of the
tiny African violet discovered in the shelter of 30 meter high
trees.
It is a hot house nurturing species found nowhere else on earth,
a secret bank account of precious genetic stock. Of its six
types of primate, two are endemic- the Iringa red Colobus monkey
and the Sanje Crested Mangabey, not detected until 1979. Four
previously unknown birds, including the rufous-winged sunbird
and a new species of the partridge-like francolin, make this
Tanzanian richest forest bird habitat and among the three most
important bird conservation areas on the continent. One of East
Africa’s great forests, undoubtedly this undisturbed habitat is
yet to reveal all its treasures, waiting for further scientific
exploration to catalogue its wealth.
A link in the chain of Africa’s eastern arc mountains, Udzungwa
is made for hiking and climbing with trails through the
rainforest and escarpment. The plateau is a natural penthouse,
with views of sugar plantations against a patchwork of grassland
and mountain forest extending over 100 kilometers. But the
centerpiece is the Sanje River where it reinvents itself as a
spectacular waterfall, plunging 170 meters through the forest to
land in a spray of mist in the valley below. ::
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