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Specialist Features and
Articles
Originally published in
Travel Africa
Magazine
A Natural
HighFew people
have heard of the scenic splendour that is the Nyika Plateau in the north of
Malawi. This National Park boasts some of the most spectacular and contrasting
countryside in Africa. Story by Philip Briggs.
"A view that uplifted us beyond measure,” wrote
Laurens Van Der Post of his first teasing glimpse of the Nyika Plateau.
“World beyond world we saw a tremendous, rolling, folding country; clean,
golden, grass-covered; rising like some Olympian pastoral symphony to a dark
blue ridge, an Atlantic roller of land, fifteen miles west of us”.
Those who are familiar with the book Venture to the Interior, Van der
Posts’s epic account of his 1949 expedition to Malawi, will be aware that
the writer worked hard to obtain this uplifting view. And, after an arduous
foot ascent of the Nyika, undertaken in thick mist, he could be forgiven for
writing in overly elegiac tones about the vision that must have greeted his
party when the mist finally lifted.
For the modern visitor to Nyika,
access is rather more straightforward than in Van der Post’s day.
Nevertheless, I defy anybody — particularly those who arrive in one of Air
Malawi’s 12-seat Cessnas — not to empathise with Van der Post’s
sentiments. The Nyika is undoubtedly one of Africa’s most remarkable and
memorable landscapes, no more so than when seen from a light plane, flying low
enough to chart every undulation, while occasional herds of eland and roan
scatter in the aircraft’s shadow.
Nyika has long held a special
place in the hearts of those who visit it. As long ago as 1902 the British
scientist John McClounie wrote a report recommending that it be placed under
protection and developed as a sanatorium for settlers. It is not difficult to
understand McClounie’s enthusiasm — the crisp highland air alone
would have provided merciful relief to any European posted on the hot, clammy
lowlands fringing Lake Malawi, as would the total absence of malaria-carrying
mosquitoes.
But the deeper appeal of this isolated montane plateau
derives from a quality that is more elusive in nature, and somewhat
paradoxical. Van der Post himself identified it. Nyika is “deep in the
heart of Africa and filled with the animals of Africa, yet covered with the
grasses, the flowers, the colours of Europe”. It has a mood which, in my
experience of Africa, is quite unique.
McClounie’s
recommendations did not reach fruition overnight; few Europeans visited the
plateau between 1902 and 1948, the year in which a relic patch of Juniperus
procera forest (the most southerly stand of this tree in Africa) was proclaimed
a forest reserve. It was a further three years before the entire plateau was
declared a no-hunting zone. Finally, in 1965, shortly after Malawian
independence, Nyika was gazetted as a national park and the Chilinda rest camp
was opened among the pine plantations at the heart of the plateau.
The
park took its modern shape as recently as 1978, when it was expanded to include
many of the foothills of the Nyika, increasing its area threefold to
3,134km2.
Nyika, in my opinion at least, is first and foremost a
scenic reserve. One of the most startling viewpoints in the park is Jalawe
rock, a large finger of granite that juts out from the plateau with a drop of
several hundred metres on three sides. On a clear day, the views extend across
the wooded valleys over neighbouring mountains to the distant waters of Lake
Malawi. With binoculars, it is often possible to pick out herds of elephant in
the valley below. Had Cecil Rhodes ever visited Jalawe, I have no doubt his
bones would rest there rather than in the Matobo Hills of Zimbabwe.
If
the best reason to visit the Nyika is for the opportunity to explore some of
Africa’s most exhilarating mountain scenery on foot or horseback, then
whatever animals you encounter are a bonus. On this basis Nyika offers
surprisingly rewarding game viewing. Almost 100 mammal species have been
recorded in the national park. Many are vagrants, and several others (elephant,
for instance) are restricted to the relatively inaccessible brachystegia
woodland below the plateau. But the grassy slopes around Chilinda still support
large numbers of zebra, warthog, common duiker and reedbuck. I can think of no
other place where clear views of the striking roan antelope are so easily
obtained, nor are you ever likely to get so close to an eland —
Africa’s largest antelope and one of its most skittish — as you will
on horseback in Nyika.
We were surprised at the number of large
predators that seem to be around. Over the course of two night drives, we saw
several spotted hyaena and side-striped jackal, as well as a pair of
honey-badgers crossing the road at dusk. Lion haven’t been seen on the
plateau for some years, though Anthony Ziegler, warden of the park from 1978 to
1983, recalls that “a single male [lion] liked to lie under a hedge
outside my house and gave me one or two frights when I came home after dark
from fishing; no doubt I gave him some frights too”.
The area has
something of a habit of attracting unexpected vagrants. A year ago, hippo spoor
were reliably recorded above the Chisanga Falls. Nobody knows where the hippo
might have come from, or indeed to where it has returned.
Nyika is
famed for its leopards. We met somebody who had encountered leopards nine times
during a one week stay; some sources suggest that the plateau’s population
of around 150 individuals is among the densest in Africa. We were unlucky on
this count, but — curiously echoing Ziegler’s story — an English
girl who started working at Chilinda barely a week before we arrived told us
that she had already encountered her first leopard, right on the doorstep of
her staff house.
Ziegler’s account is one of several
remeniscences collected in a book entitled The Nyika Experience. Much of it
makes for fascinating reading. I find it astonishing, for instance, that
reedbuck, now the most common large mammal on the plateau (the population is
estimated at 3,000), may have numbered as few as 20 in the 1950s. Bushbuck,
too, were regarded to be rare at that time but now they are readily seen,
particularly in the clumps of heath that follow the river out of the dam at
Chilinda.
There is sad irony in the following comments regarding the
apparent scarcity of small antelope in the 1950s: “The second danger is
the wild dog. The Nyika is perfect hunting country for wild dog...[and] it
seems essential that their numbers be reduced, and soon”. As is the case
in so many parts of Africa, wild dogs are now extinct on the Nyika, though
recent reports of sightings in the nearby Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve give
cause for some slight optimism that they might one day return.
Nyika
is known for its rich and diverse flora. Amateur botanists will find the park
highly rewarding in the summer months (November to March), when the wild
flowers come into bloom. Particularly noteworthy are the 200 orchid species
that have been recorded, at least 12 of which are unique to the park.
Birders, too, will find much to interest them at Nyika. This is one of the best
places in Africa to see the localised wattled crane, Denham’s bustard and
mountain marsh widow. Remnant forest patches support a number of rare residents
including the exquisite bar-tailed trogon and the skies are ruled by the
strikingly marked Auger buzzard. In all, some 400 bird species have been
recorded in the park, including four endemic subspecies.
This is a
time of great change at Nyika. In 1997, Chilinda Camp was leased to a private
company whose involvement in the park started in 1993 with the installation of
horse stables. This move has already led to the thorough refurbishing and
refurnishing of the once run-down accommodation. Access, too, has improved
greatly in the last 12 months, with the road to the park being regraded for the
first time in five years, and Air Malawi starting scheduled flights to
Chilinda.
Even more exciting is the news that the German bank KFW is
providing funding of US$8 million towards developing and sustaining Nyika and
Vwaza Marsh. Much of this money will go towards upgrading tourist facilities.
It is hoped that tourism, along with timber production, will eventually
generate enough income to satisfy the requirements of government, local
communities and park management. No less important will be the financial boost
given to the crucial area of wildlife management.
Subsistence
poaching from neighbouring areas threatens several of the park’s less
common mammal species, and while animal populations in the immediate vicinity
of Chilinda are stable, possibly even growing, it is striking how few large
mammals you see when you venture away from this one small area.
You
don’t travel in Africa for long without attaining a healthy degree of
scepticism about grand schemes. But after having visited Nyika in its present
state of transition, I cannot help but feel optimistic. This, surely, is the
beginning of a process destined to place one of Africa’s most singularly
beautiful national parks firmly on the tourist map after years of obscurity.
Philip Briggs has
visited Malawi on several occasions. He is the author of nine African travel
guide books.
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