Liwonde National Park

The Shire River runs through the heart of Liwonde for approximately 70 kilometres, and the entire park is structured around this waterway. From the deck of a aluminium boat at dawn the river is mirror-flat and the sound carries for kilometres: a hippo surfacing with a pneumatic exhale, the alarm call of a baboon troop in the riverine forest, the liquid note of the African fish eagle that is the river's auditory signature throughout the park.

Elephants are the dominant large mammal presence in Liwonde and their impact on the vegetation is visible everywhere. Along the Shire's western bank the riverine forest has been opened into wide grassy channels where the elephants have pushed through to reach the water, and the pattern of destruction and regrowth creates a constantly shifting mosaic of habitat that benefits smaller species — warthogs, Waterbuck, the diminutive suni antelope — that require the edge habitat the elephants create.

The African Parks rewilding programme that began in 2015 has transformed Liwonde's species composition. Fourteen cheetah were translocated from South Africa between 2017 and 2022 and have established a breeding population in the park's northern section. Black rhinos — absent from Malawi for decades — were reintroduced in 2021 in a specially designed boma (enclosure) within the park, and their tracks are now regularly recorded on camera traps along the Shire floodplain.

The floodplain itself — known as the Liwonde Depression — fills during the rainy season from November to April and supports a dense growth of bulrush and papyrus that provides cover for the sitatunga antelope, a semi-aquatic species rarely seen elsewhere in Malawi. The floodplain also draws enormous concentrations of waterbirds: thousands of white pelicans, hundreds of African skimmers that breed on the exposed sandbars in the dry season, and the distinctive African openbill stork that specialises in eating apple snails from the flooded grass.

Camping near the Shire River is a genuinely immersive experience. The sound of hippos moving through the water at night is constant and close — their underwater locomotion produces a distinctive clicking sound as their joints flex — and the occasional deep trunk-wave against the riverbank reminds you that large bull elephants use the same water access points. The park's three tented camps are deliberately positioned to be within sight and sound of the river, and the connection to the water is considered as important as the wildlife sightings themselves.

The biltong trail — a network of raised wooden boardwalks connecting the tented camps to a central dining area — is designed to allow movement through the park during the wet season when the floodplain is impassable. From these boardwalks you look out over the floodplain at hippo pools and into the riverine forest canopy where colobus monkeys move in coordinated troops, and the elevated perspective gives a completely different sense of scale to the landscape than you get from the river itself.

Liwonde's management by African Parks has brought a level of anti-poaching infrastructure that the park lacked under government management: a dedicated canine unit, a network of ranger stations along the perimeter, and a community engagement programme that provides alternative livelihoods to communities that previously depended on the park's wildlife for protein and income. The results are visible in the rising elephant population and the successful establishment of the cheetah and rhino populations, which represent the most ambitious wildlife reintroduction programme in Malawi's history.

Liwonde offers the best opportunity in Malawi to see large elephant herds and hippos at close range from both the water and the land, and the Shire River provides a uniquely scenic access route through the park.

The African Parks rewilding programme has made Liwonde one of the few places in the region where it is possible to see cheetah and black rhino alongside the classic large mammals, representing a genuine restoration of the original African savanna fauna.

The birdlife on the Shire floodplain — particularly the concentrations of white pelicans, African skimmers and openbill storks — is of continental significance and attracts birders from across Africa.