Linyanti Safari Game Drive

From hunting to plenty

The elephants move quickly to the water and began to drink and splash around, seemingly oblivious of anything around them. The sight before me was a far cry from the nervous and aggressive elephants that came down to drink some years back.

Since the cessation of trophy hunting in the area and the calm across the border since independence the wildlife has settled down and this part of Africa is quickly becoming one of the prime areas for African wildlife safaris.

• Highlights of a Linyanti Game drive
• Some of the largest concentrations of Elephants in Africa
• Strong predator population
• Stronghold of the African wild dog
• One of Africa’s best new destinations

Linyanti yesterday and today

Banking over the Linyanti swamp in a light aircraft the sheer expanse of the wetland stretches out before you and in all this are herds of elephants as far as the eye can see. This is the Linyanti of yesteryear, before the arrival of the hunters, a wilderness that is back to its wildlife rich best following the cessation of hunting activities.

‘The sun was sinking lower over the water as we watched the herd drinking on the opposite side of the small bay, and as the orange orb disappeared below the horizon and the evening began to darken we started getting back into the vehicle. Suddenly a rush of grey flashed past us, not twenty meters away – another herd of about 30 elephants had ignored us and moved straight to the water to drink. We sat in awed silence, marvelling at quickly a wilderness area and the animals in it can recover from decades of hunting.’

‘On the way back to camp we had a quick view of a leopard before it melted into the night and a few hundred meters from camp the resident lodge hyena was ambling slowly towards camp in search of an opportunity.’

‘Linyanti had certainly changed dramatically for the better since my first visit 3 years before. It was difficult getting close to the animals then and they were nowhere near as plentiful as they are today’.

New age in African safari

That night I thought how spectacular the Linyanti was and how my doubts at the claim that it would become one of Africa’s greatest wildlife areas had been erased. This was truly a new age in African safari.