In the extreme west of Tanzania are two national parks that aren't well known: Katavi National Park and Mahale Mountains National Park. (Read more about Mahale Mountains here… ) These reserves are remote and tricky to access, and they're costly to visit – but they're different from Tanzania's other parks, and totally magical.

Once in Katavi, Tanzania's third largest national park won't disappoint you. Two enormous plains of knee-high golden grass – Chada and Katasunga – dominate the park, surrounded by varied woodlands. Katavi National Park is at its best in the dry season, when the plains fill with thousands of zebra, topi and impala. Hartebeest, giraffe, and Defassa waterbuck are also very common, there's a large population of resident elephants, and some impressive herds of buffalo. Katavi is a great park for watching lion-buffalo interactions. Spotted hyena are frequently seen, whilst leopard appear on the woodland fringes, but are more elusive. Wild dog do live here, but tend to stick to the escarpment and are rarely seen on the plains.

During the dry season, the Katuma and Kapapa rivers are the only water for miles. As the game files down to drink, hundreds of hippo congregate in the tiniest waterhole and enormous crocodiles sit out the heat in river-bank mud-holes. Katavi hosts large flocks of open-billed storks, saddlebills, spoonbills, crested cranes and pink-backed pelicans. Raptors are plentiful whilst the woodlands of the national park are home to species as diverse as African golden orioles, paradise fly-catchers and pennant-winged nightjars.

Katavi National Park is a name to conjure with; it's one of the best parks in Africa. Many safari operations would love to start camps here, but the logistics and costs are difficult, so at time of writing, there are only a couple of small, permanent safari camps in the park sharing this 4,500km² of wilderness:

Chada Camp

Chada Camp, often simply known as Chada Katati, is the most established camp in the park, with a permanent staff. Chada is the sister-camp of Greystoke Mahale, in the Mahale Mountains; they're often visited on a combined trip. (Read more about Chada Katavi here… )

Katavi Wilderness Camp

Katavi Wilderness Camp is the sister-camp of Ruaha River Lodge, and is often called simply 'Fox's Camp' on account of the family that owns it. This operation is very different, and often the guide flies in here together with the visitors. (Read more about Katavi Wilderness Camp here… )

Getting to Katavi National Park

Katavi's isolation has helped it to remain untouched and largely unvisited; by light aircraft it takes four or five hours to reach here from Dar or Arusha. However, the result is that whilst the Serengeti National Park sees around 120,000 visitors per annum, Katavi has only a few hundred visitors per year!

The least expensive way to get to Katavi (and Mahale Mountains, which is relatively nearby) is by using twice-weekly scheduled flights which link these parks with Arusha, in northern Tanzania. Operating on Mondays and Thursdays, their relatively high cost helps to make these parks two of Tanzania's most expensive destinations!

Since mid-2007, there have been new flights routing Dar-Selous-Ruaha to Katavi/Mahale, and back. These also run on Mondays and Thursdays. Sadly, the costs for these are similar to the costs of chartering; certainly no lower than the schedule flights from Arusha.

Click here for an example of trip here - our Chimpanzee safari.


^ Top of page