Southern Circuit
For many years, tourism in Tanzania was confined to either the northern game sanctuaries or along the coast. Recently, however, there has been a growth of interest. The southern circuit has large unexplored areas of beauty and wildlife to offer. Safaris to the south are becoming increasingly popular. The area’s isolation is in fact, part of its attraction. Those who wish to avoid the well-worn tourist routes head for Ruaha National park, the Selous Game Reserve or the scenic southern highlands. Another advantage of using Dar-Es-Salaam instead of Arusha as the base for an itinerary is the relatively easy access to the coast and islands. It is therefore, quite feasible to combine, coastal, historical and wildlife itineraries on one circuit. Below: you will find examples of safari itineraries including national parks of the Southern Circuit.
SELOUS GAME RESERVE
Selous
In the south of Tanzania, stretching inland from the coast, lays Africa’s largest wildlife sanctuary, the Selous Game Reserve – bigger than Denmark. It lies south of Mikumi, covers 6% of Tanzania’s total area and is four times the size of Serengeti. It contains the greatest concentration of big game left on earth. Selous game reserve is internationally famous for its animals. It has the world’s largest number of big game: – elephant 28,000, buffaloes 160,000, hippos 2,000, and sable antelopes 14,000. There are about 350 species of birdlife which include: – Fish eagle, secretary bird, king fisher, sun bird, herms, bill stork and hammer kop.
The climate is tropical, with two rainy seasons; from January – March it is hot with occasional showers. The heaviest rains are between March – May. The best time to visit is from June – October when the weather is cool and dry, the vegetation lush and the animals easy to see.
Selous has the finest virgin bush, unspoiled by time. Although it remains one of the least scientifically researched areas in Africa, some 1700 botanical species have been identified. In the far south, the vastness of the reserve and its general inaccessibility has turned the Selous into a magnificent refuge for animals, birds, insects and reptiles.
RUAHA NATIONAL PARK
Ruaha
Ruaha National Park is one of the unexplored parks in Tanzania with the largest elephant sanctuary. It lies 130 km west of Iringa. The name Ruaha derives from the great Ruaha River which flows along its entire eastern border creating spectacular gorges and scenery, while hippos, crocodiles, turtles and fish inhabit the river.
Elephants are often to be seen on the banks of the Ruaha River. Lions, giraffes and other animals can also be found in this area.
The park is also known for its concentration of greater and lesser kudus, its roan and sable antelopes, and its rich birdlife. Special photographic blinds have been built at strategic places where wildlife congregates.
The terrain within most of the park is a well-wooded, undulating plateau at an average altitude of 915m with mountains in the south rising 1600 meters and in the west rising up to 1900 m above sea level. The Great Ruaha River passes through the park.
The best months for game viewing are July to November.
MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK
Mikumi
Although comparatively small in area, Mikumi is rich in wildlife and contains buffalo, elephant and lions. There are also wildebeests, zebras, impalas, wart hogs, hippos, cheetahs and giraffes. Most of the animals can be seen at all seasons within a short drive of Mikumi Wildlife Lodge and in the vicinity of the Hippo Pool and Mikumi Wildlife Camp. Elephants can be seen throughout the area, and buffalo totaling some 3,000 are to be found on the treeless grassland. A family of hippo lives at Hippo Pool 5km from the park gate.
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 centrepiece 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. Giraffes forage in the isolated acacia stands that fringe the Mkata River, islets of shade favoured also by Mikumi’s elephants.
Udzungwa Mountains National Park
Uduzungwa
Udzungwa is the largest and has the most biodiversity of a chain of a dozen large forest-swathed mountains that rise majestically from the flat coastal scrub of eastern Tanzania. Known collectively as the Eastern Arc Mountains, this archipelago of isolated massifs has also been dubbed the African Galapagos for its treasure-trove of endemic plants and animals, most familiarly the delicate African violet.
Udzungwa alone among the ancient ranges of the Eastern Arc has been accorded national park status. It is also unique within Tanzania in that its closed-canopy forest spans without interruption, altitudes of 250 meters (820 feet) to above 2,000 meters (6,560 ft).
Not a conventional game viewing destination, Udzungwa is a magnet for hikers. An excellent network of forest trails includes the popular half-day ramble to Sanje Waterfall, which plunges 170 meters (550 feet) through a misty spray into the forested valley below.
The more challenging two-night Mwanihana Trail leads to the high plateau, with its panoramic views over surrounding sugar plantations, before ascending to Mwanihana peak, the second-highest point in the range.
Ornithologists are attracted to Udzungwa for an avian wealth embracing more than 400 species of birds, from the lovely and readily-located green-headed oriole to more than a dozen secretive Eastern Arc endemics.
Four bird species are peculiar to Udzungwa, including a forest partridge first discovered in 1991 and more closely related to an Asian genus than to any other African fowl.
Of six primate species recorded, the Iringa red colobus and Sanje Crested Mangabey both occur nowhere else in the world – the latter, remarkably, remained undetected by biologists prior to 1979
Undoubtedly, this great forest has yet to reveal all its treasures: ongoing scientific exploration will surely add to its diverse catalogue of endemics.
Kitulo Plateau National Park
Plants
Locals refer to the Kitulo Plateau as Bustani ya Mungu – The Garden of God – while botanists have dubbed it the Serengeti of Flowers, host to ‘one of the great floral spectacles of the world’. Kitulo is indeed a rare botanical marvel, home to a full 350 species of vascular plants, including 45 varieties of terrestrial orchid, which erupt into a riotous wildflower display of breathtaking scale and diversity during the main rainy season of late November to April.
Perched at around 2,600 meters (8,500 ft) between the rugged peaks of the Kipengere, are the Poroto and Livingstone Mountains. The well-watered volcanic soils of Kitulo support the largest and most important mountain grassland community in Tanzania.
One of the most important watersheds for the Great Ruaha River, Kitulo is well known for its floral significance – not only a multitude of orchids, but also the stunning yellow-orange red-hot poker and a variety of aloes, proteases, geraniums, giant lobelias, lilies and aster daisies, of which more than 30 species are endemic to southern Tanzania.
Big game is sparsely represented, though a few hardy mountain reedbuck and eland still roam the open grassland.
But Kitulo – a botanist and hiker’s paradise – is also highly alluring to birdwatchers. Tanzania’s only population of the rare Denham’s bustard resides here alongside a breeding colony of the endangered blue swallow and such range-restricted species such as the mountain marsh widow, Njombe cisticola and Kipengere seed eater. Endemic species of butterfly, chameleon, lizard and frog further enhance the biological wealth of God’s Garden.