Ruaha
National Park
Background Information
The game viewing starts the moment the plane touches down.
A giraffe races beside the airstrip, all legs and neck,
yet oddly elegant in its awkwardness. A line of zebras parades
across the runway in the giraffe's wake.
In the distance, beneath a
bulbous baobab tree, a few representatives of Ruaha's 10,000
elephants - the largest population of any East African national
park, form a protective huddle around their young.
Second only to Katavi in its
aura of untrammelled wilderness, but far more accessible,
Ruaha protects a vast tract of the rugged, semi-arid bush
country that characterises central Tanzania. Its lifeblood
is the Great Ruaha River, which courses along the eastern
boundary in a flooded torrent during the height of the rains,
but dwindling thereafter to a scattering of precious pools
surrounded by a blinding sweep of sand and rock.
A fine network of game-viewing
roads follows the Great Ruaha and its seasonal tributaries,
where , during the dry season, impala, waterbuck and other
antelopes risk their life for a sip of life-sustaining water.
And the risk is considerable: not only from the prides of
20-plus lion that lord over the savannah, but also from
the cheetahs that stalk the open grassland and the leopards
that lurk in tangled riverine thickets. This impressive
array of large predators is boosted by both striped and
spotted hyena, as well as several conspicuous packs of the
highly endangered African wild dog.
Ruaha's unusually high diversity
of antelope is a function of its location, which is transitional
to the acacia savannah of East Africa and the miombo woodland
belt of Southern Africa. Grant's gazelle and lesser kudu
occur here at the very south of their range, alongside the
miombo-associated sable and roan antelope, and one of East
AfricaÆs largest populations of greater kudu, the
park emblem, distinguished by the male's magnificent corkscrew
horns.
A similar duality is noted
in the checklist of 450 birds: the likes of crested barbet,
an attractive yellow-and-black bird whose persistent trilling
is a characteristic sound of the southern bush, occur in
Ruaha alongside central Tanzanian endemics such as the yellow-collared
lovebird and ashy starling.
About Ruaha National
Park
Size: 10,300 sq km (3,980 sq miles), Tanzania's 2nd biggest
park.
Location: Central Tanzania, 128km (80 miles) west of Iringa.
How To get There
Scheduled and/or charter flights from Dar es Salaam, Selous,
Serengeti, Arusha, Iringa and Mbeya.
Year-round road access through Iringa from Dar es Salaam
(about 10 hours) via Mikumi or from Arusha via Dodoma.
What to do
Day walks or hiking safaris through untouched bush.
Stone age ruins at Isimila, near Iringa, 120 km (75 miles)
away, one of Africa's most important historical sites .
When to go there
For predators and large mammals, dry season (mid-May-December);
bird-watching, lush scenery and wildflowers, wet season
(January-April).
The male greater kudu is most visible in June, the breeding
season.
Accommodation
Riverside lodge;
three dry season tented camps;
self-catering bandas, two campsites;
Ruaha Hill Top Lodge |
