SOUTHERN CIRCUIT
SOUTHERN CIRCUIT
SELOUS GAME RESERVE
Selous Game Reserve is Africa’s largest game reserve and one of favourite game viewing areas in Africa. Covering 50,000 square kilometres, is amongst the largest protected areas in Africa and is relatively undisturbed by human impact.
Africa’s largest and oldest game reserve is one of its most scenic wildlife destinations; the Selous is utterly beautiful. The beauty of the park is matched by the quality of a safari here; boating, walking and fly camping compliment standard game driving in thriving wildlife areas. This is an outrageously good safari park and an essential component of any southern circuit itinerary.
The Selous is a superb safari destination for both family safaris and African honeymoons, all the better for the ease of getting there and the lack of crowds. The park has the widest diversity of safari activities in the country, offering the boating safaris as well as standard game drives, walking safaris and legendary fly camping trips.
RUAHA NATIONAL PARK
In 2008 the Usangu Game reserve merged its borders with Ruaha transforming it into Tanzania’s largest national park; it now covers more than 20,000km².
Despite the size of the park there are still only a handful of camps found here, which has built Ruaha’s reputation as Tanzania’s best kept game viewing secret.
Ruaha’s wild and untrammeled feel is what sets it apart from other reserves, making it a popular choice for regular east African safari.
Ruaha is well known for its varied dramatic scenery, which includes rolling hills; large open plains; groves of skeletal baobabs and along its southern border, the Great Ruaha River, from which the park gets its name. This is by far the most dominant geographical feature of the national park and, for the wildlife it is the most important.
Ruaha has a hot, dry climate which means the animals don’t tend to stray too far from dependable water sources. This makes predicting game movements far easier, particularly in the dry season.
MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK
Swirls of opaque mist hide the advancing dawn. The first shafts of sun colour the fluffy grass heads rippling across the plain in a russet halo.
A herd of zebras, confident in their camouflage at this predatory hour, pose like ballerinas, heads aligned and stripes mergingin flowing motion.
Mikumi National Park abuts the northern border of Africa’s biggest game reserve – the Selous – and is transected by the surfaced road between Dar es Salaam and Iringa.
It is thus the most accessible part of a 75,000 square kilometre (47,000 square mile) tract of wilderness that stretches east almost as far as the Indian Ocean.
The open horizons and abundant wildlife of the Mkata Floodplain, the popular centerpiece of Mikumi, draw frequent comparisons to the more famous Serengeti Plains.
Lions survey their grassy kingdom – and the zebra, wildebeest, impala and buffalo herds that migrate across it – from the flattened tops of termite mounds, or sometimes, during the rains, from perches high in the trees.
KITULO NATIONAL PARK
The local people of the place call Kitulo as Bustani ya Mungu (garden of god). Mostly the national park is called Serengeti of flowers by the botanists.
The park was especially initiated to protect the orchids from the international trade in orchid tubers.
Kitulo is a small park; it acquires a 14th position in between the 16 national parks of the country. The Kitulo National Park doesn’t showcase much of wildlife; however numerous orchids compensate for the loss.
The national park is home to more than 350 plant species. You can spot mostly Afroalpine plants, geophytes, and ground orchids as well you can enjoy lilies, irises, aloes, proteas, giant lobelias, and daisies too.
The Kitulo national park is home to a few endangered bird species and primates as well. You can spot some mountain animals too like; Reed bucks, zebras, elands. It is also home to 25 endangered primate species including Kipunji monkeys.
