Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve
Expert Reviews (2)
Malawi Parks
Ariadne is a renowned African wildlife photographer whose work is featured in many well-known guidebooks and magazines.
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Underrated and Low-Key Place To Kick Back
We arrived after a long day on public transport, with our backpacks on our shoulders and covered in red Malawi dust. Arriving at a game reserve without any personal transport might seem crazy, but it can be done here. We spent a few days camping, reading books and watching animals come and go from the vast lake in front of us. Buffalo and elephant are particularly common, so we obeyed the rules of not walking around on our own. We did, however, enjoy a stroll to the lake’s edge with an armed ranger to see a hippo pod. All in all, it was a very low-key experience in terms of game viewing, but in travel terms a highlight. We had the whole place to ourselves for several days, cooked on a little gas stove and watched the stars at night.
Philip is an acclaimed travel writer and author of many guidebooks, including the Bradt guides to Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.
1 person found this review helpful.
Super-accessible Elephant and Hippo Viewing
A contender for Malawi’s best-kept game-viewing secret, underpublicised Vwaza Marsh currently holds more appeal to backpackers than it does to upmarket safari-goers. Its game-viewing centrepiece, situated at the main entrance gate, is Lake Kazuni, which hosts hundreds of hippo and attracts regular visits by some of the reserve’s 250-plus elephant and 500-odd buffalo, along with various antelope. The lake itself supports a great many waterfowl, as well as several pairs of African fish eagle, and you might tick off 50 species in a few hours in the surrounding woodland. Leopards still occur in small numbers, and lions are occasional vagrants from Zambia, but African wild dogs haven’t been seen in years.
For independent travellers on a budget, Lake Kazuni is very easily accessed on public transport, and it is serviced by an inexpensive campsite. For those on an organised safari, Kazuni is a good place to break up the long drive from Lilongwe to Nyika National Park (a few adequate lodges are available in the nearby town of Rumphi). However, the rest of the park – including the eponymous marsh – is difficult to explore, especially in the wet summer months, thanks to the lack of proper all-weather roads and abundance of tsetse flies.
As is the case with several other reserves in Malawi, Vwaza Marsh was earmarked for significant future developments when I revisited it in May 2024. These include the upgrading and privatization of the (currently disused) lodge overlooking Lake Kazuni. Following the signing of a comanagement plan with Peace Parks in 2024, there are also plans to improve and expand the limited road network.