This safari offers a daring level of immersion, without the truck scrums

The pack bounds unflinchingly across earth scorched into dusty crust by another failed wet season, scattering antelopes. An unlikely threat pursues the insatiable pursuers, the evolving drama silhouetted by a dusky furnace, giving the Zambezi Escarpment a biblical heft.

African wild dogs are prolific day-hunters but tonight, with yelping pups to nourish, the candescent full moon is their sun. They’ve dragged down countless impalas and waterbucks, and one water buffalo, on Jeki Plains this week. They gorge ferociously on prey, regurgitating the flesh into covetous jaws once back in their den; repeat process.

Nkonzi … where buffalo roam.Credit:

Every safari vehicle in Lower Zambezi National Park, near Zambia’s southern border, spectates from afar, spread wide, truck-side sundowners in hand. Except one LandCruiser, which stalks behind the dogs. Sebastian Sakala chats furiously on his CB.

“They’re putting pressure on the dogs – the headlights are blinding them,” says the Classic Zambia head guide. “It’s important to think on behalf of the animals. Cars should never run towards them.” Later, he reports the offender, apparently a newbie, to his guide association.

Zambia’s safari guides must complete professional, “school-teacher level” qualifications, renowned Africa-wide. As a safari destination, however, this southern-African country is oft-dismissed as a place to come once you’ve “done” Kruger, Okavango Delta et al. It’s a judgment that needs re-evaluating.

Chula Island elephant.Credit:

If you’ve never experienced Zambia’s forte: its seasonal, small-plane-accessed micro bush camps (usually encompassing five well-spaced tents apiece).

Sydney-based The Classic Safari Company hand-picked six such camps for me to sample, two each in arguably Zambia’s three premier national parks. Chula Island and Kutali camps in the Lower Zambezi (both Classic Zambia) are exemplars of this “bush-luxury” without the oligarch-pandering accoutrements’ model.

Chula Island wild dogs.Credit:

Kutali’s (twin/king) generously proportioned, oblong-shaped net-sided tents draw in the surrounding space, nestling among spectral, elephant-trimmed winterthorn trees on absolute, Zimbabwe-facing Zambezi River frontage (Victoria Falls is many kilometres upriver). Nearby Chula Island’s tents stand well away from their neighbours, surrounded by Natal mahogany trees topiaried from underneath by grazing kudus (antelopes).

These fence-less bush camps, which “pack down” every wet season, offer an almost daring level of immersion. At Kutali, a hippo smacks her lips grazing three metres from my tent at 3am. At campfire breakfast, a leopard breezily strides past the cane-lounge common area.

Croc advice? Keep limbs out of the water.Credit:

Safari options are as diverse as anywhere, including driving, walking, boating and a two-hour paddle along the Discovery Channel, perhaps the stealthiest way to sneak up on hoopoe birds “hoopooing” and baboons a-battling. “Guests get nervous about canoe safaris,” says Sebastian, but he’s never felt threatened in 20 years on the Zambezi.

Nile-crocodile safety is straightforward: “Keep body parts in the boat”. Advancing hippos require more premeditation. “Snorting is communication, them saying you’re in my territory, so we need to give them space to manoeuvre.” When Sebastian says, “paddle fast”, paddle fast.

Kafue NP, Western Zambia
Ntemwa-Busanga Plains/Musekese camps (Classic Zambia)

Musekese sunset dinner.Credit:

The pilot executes a full-noise fly-by to “scare away hairies and scaries” before the Cessna 210 puffs down on a dirt runway in Kafue National Park. The game-drive to Ntemwa-Busanga Camp, through swaying, Serengeti-like grassland, is an antelope-fest, starring the noble-horned black sable and endemic roan.

These seasonal floodplains have few shade trees, so Ntemwa-Busanga’s rustic-luxe canvas-sided chalets are topped with thatched-grass roofs for insulation. What does $US710 ($1144) a person buy you here? King four-poster beds in commodious, airy, minimally decorated rooms anchored by solid repurposed campaign furniture and director’s chairs. Wooden floors that extend out to a raised wooden deck – curtains demarcating inside from savannah.

Classic Zambia standardises international-fusion menus across its properties, quality dishes such as local-bream ceviche, served, in Ntemwa-Busanga’s case, in an open-air, lantern-lit dining space (blankets available). I was, however, left wanting for a few more Zambian options.

Ntemwa-Busanga embraces the Zambian bush-camp trademark of artful, ingenious open-air ensuites; natural-material chic meets “traditional” housekeeper-filled bucket showers, flushing toilets and boutique lotions. The camps are proudly, necessarily off-grid, and solar-power reliance comes with compromises: no air-con and Wi-Fi, and centralised device charging (in Ntemwa-Busanga’s chilled bar-cum-viewing platform).

The life-affirming isolation is itself a luxury. In two days’ game-driving, I see two other safari vehicles. One shares the location of three cheetahs hunting in unison; the other, the position of two lions in awkward, snarly union.

Grassy plains morph into Miombo woodland as we drive (and speedboat ride) to Musekese Camp, a measure Zambia’s largest national park’s diversity. The Kafue sister camps have distinct personalities. Musekese’s shady common area and tented studio-apartment-sized “rooms” – with inside bathrooms – offer a dress-circle vantage point of wildlife-action-rich Eden Lagoon. Almighty lion vocalisations at night sometimes trigger guests into using their emergency walkie-talkies (needlessly).

Musekese is a citizen-scientist’s dream. On safari, ID booklets help identify lions such as Tripod (she lost a leg in a snare). Fifteen kilometres from camp, Musekese Conservation, founded after a “mass-snaring event” in 2018, works with Zambian officials to patrol poaching hotspots and monitor injured animals.

The camp/donor-funded NGO aims to educate travellers about the complex conservation issues facing Kafue, including rampant reforestation from encroaching agriculture and charcoal production (for fuel). The snare demonstration shows just how vulnerable wildlife is to “subsistence” and commercial poaching.

South Luangwa NP, Eastern Zambia
Nkonzi (independent) & Luwi River (Time + Tide) camps

Luwi River sleepout.Credit:

The plane from Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, looks like it’ll struggle to find a clearing in the Amazonian-esque tangle of bush around Mfuwe, near South Luangwa National Park. Nkonzi Camp’s windscreen-and-roofless Land Rover whisks us straight across the un-dammed Luangwa River, the park border, where hippo pods cross the road nonchalantly and the uncanny scent of baked potatoes hangs in the air (from the potato bush).

Gavin Opie opened Nkonzi in 2015 on the site of a former poacher’s camp. They no longer come close to his “classic old-world bush camp”. It’s the cheapest of this bunch ($US650 a person a night), but emanates an unfranchised boutique-safari flair.

The tents, positioned under sausage trees, are narrow but rich in local touches, such as the ensuite’s reed mates, and beds made by a Catholic mission run by monks with a flair for carpentry. Big ticks, too, for Nkonzi’s private shaded sun-lounge area in each tent, and the intimate riverbed campfire breakfast set-up, often frequented by “ellies”.

Setting up for refreshments at Nkonzi Camp.Credit:

Pioneers such as Norman Carr began walking safaris in South Luangwa last century, a tradition embraced by bush camps today. These are not animal-tracking exercises, Gavin says. “Less-conditioned” animals in this remote area of the park will flee at the first whiff of human.

Nkonzi camp bathroom.Credit:

Rifle-toting ranger up front, we plant each step attentively, hiking single-file along paths worn by elephants through the canopy-less woodland festooned in earthy dry-season reds and oranges. On foot, tiny details spring from the ground. An electric-blue feather. Big-cat prints stomped into the sand. A pile of leopard-cub poo (its furry diet the giveaway). Vexatious Tsetse flies (NB: don’t wear black).

Time + Tide Luwi camp is 10 untamed kilometres north. This South African-owned, Zambian-staffed property is the most well-appointed ($US940 a night), raising the premium bar slightly with vintage carpets, cute touches such as in-room retro Fieldbar coolers, and sometimes-slow Wi-Fi.

Nkonzi camp safari … wild at heart.Credit:

Its bar-island channels a Hemingway-era vibe: stuffed-leather sofas, vintage trunks and powerful cocktails. Guide/manager Lawrence Banda, binoculars always at the ready, recounts the puku (antelope) kills he’s seen lately sitting at this “bush-TV” (by leopards, lions and wild dogs).

Drink emptied, he leads me straight out of camp on an overnight walking safari, promising a cosmic denouement. We rustle through dense, spindly elephant grass, follow “hippo highways” and snack on wild dates. Detours are many, for landscape and fauna, steering well clear of buffalo and elephant herds.

As dusk falls, we stomp up the dry Luwi River bed until, finally, a mirage-like spectacle of safari opulence appears: a mobile camp, spread out on the beach-white sand. Barman Mike swirls me a G&T from his trolly. Chef Benwell has the brai smoking hot. I rinse off in solar-heated water in my mobile shower/loo tent, then share beef stew and nshima (playdoh-like maize) with Lawrence at a white-table-cloth dinner.

I spoon a hot-water bottle in my cubed, mozzie-net-enmeshed bed. Small fires encircle the camp, keeping away hyenas in theory. There are infinite reasons to feel vulnerable tonight, but I’ve learnt to trust the system, and surrender to the unimpeded stars above.

Why wouldn’t Zambia’s bush camps be a first-time safari experience? Well, it’s difficult to tick off the “Big 5” in one place (rhinos, for example, were poached to extinction here in the 1990s; since reintroduced in some national parks). There’s no wildebeest-migration equivalent and, arguably, places such as the Masaai Mara offer more cultural connection than remote national parks.

Mix-and-matched, however, Zambia’s remote bush camps offer a rare, diverse immersion into the unfenced wilderness, far from safari-truck scrums. Guides care about you and where they are equally. If you want a cut-price safari or need plunge pools, look elsewhere. If you are a genuine safari enthusiast, who appreciates good-value, understated safari elegance, and doesn’t mind getting just a wee bit dusty, you’ve found your safari.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Qantas flies from Sydney to Johannesburg non-stop. Connect to Lusaka with Airlink. See flyairlink.com

STAY
The Classic Safari Company (Sydney) can tailor itineraries with these camps. Prices start at $US710 a person a night for Classic Zambia camps (Kutali, Chula Island, Musekese, Ntemwa-Busanga). Nkonzi Camp from $US650. Time + Tide Luwi from $US940 (sleep-out extra). Includes park fees but flights extra. See classicsafaricompany.com.au

TIPS
Tourist visa on arrival (90-day)
Consult your doctor about malaria
High/dry safari season is April-November

The writer was a guest of The Classic Safari Company.