Straw Coloured Fruit Bat Migration
Kasanka National Park, Zambia
Where: Kasanka NP, Zambia
When: October to December
Cost: £££
Difficulty: **
Every winter, Kasanka National Park located in eastern Zambia becomes, home to approximately 10 million fruit bats. With straw coloured fruit bats migrating from many parts of Africa and some bats having been found to travel over 1000km to spend the winter in Kasanka National Park. The fruit bat migration is the largest mammal migration on earth and it is possible to witness this migration first hand (and almost eye level with the bats!) each year.
My Experience…
We rented an overlander with rooftop tent and travelled to Kasanka as part of a larger trip. We ended up starting at Victoria Falls and completing a 17 hour long drive to Kasanka NP in one day. I would not recommend this. But do be prepared for a long drive, if driving from Lusaka airport it is approximately 8-9 hours. There are tolls along the way so have cash ready (the tolls are very cheap).
Kasanka National Park itself has really good, well maintained roads and tracks inside the park. So good in fact, we did not have to engage the 4 wheel drive on our vehicle once whilst there. This was very different to some of the other parks we have visited in Zambia, where a 4x4 is an absolute must!
At the entrance of the park there is an office where you pay fees for entering (these are quite expensive for internationals). Once paid up we drove on inside and after a while of driving arrived at the reception/restuarant area where we checked in. We had booked in advance to stay in the campsite area. This area was great because it was very close to a hide that was an excellent spot for Sitatunga antelope. To see the bats you can book and pay for tours at the reception area. We booked onto several as there are many different hides around the park from which you can view the bats that all offer different views/experiences.
When it came to the evening we met the tour guide at the meeting point and made our way to the viewing platform. All the viewing platforms we visited involved climbing quite a lot of steps, but it was worth the climb as the platform bought us up on top of the canopy. As the sun started to set huge straw coloured fruit bats started to appear. More and more took to the skies until the sky was just full of bats.
