Road from Lusaka to South Luangwa N. Park (Zambia)
 

We are planning to go from Lusaka to South Luangwa National Park, do you know if we have to reach Chipata, or there's a short cut before for Mfuwe ? We would prefer tarmac road...

thank you

There is a road on many maps from Petauke (sp?) north into the bottom of the park and eventually to Mfuwe. It is 120 kms and i took about 10 hours to complete it. Its a first gear crawl with several water crossings (depending on the time of year).

If you prefer tarmac this is not the road for you. Even the road from Chipata to Mfuwe is slow going.

If you want to read a bit more on what is in that area, visit this site and scroll down the page about 80-85% of the way down.

We just did this road about 3 weeks ago...we took the "shortcut" from Petauke to Chilembwe and Chilongozi (these are the names on my older atlas). It ended up taking 2 days, the last 100 km was a 6 hours affair in my Land Cruiser...

As Rene said, if you prefer tarmac don't try it...

We did the route from Petauke a few weeks ago, took about 10 hours, made it to Mafuwe in one day from Bridge Camp just down the road from the bridge over the South Luangwa river on the main road (It's not closed as T4A says). I wouldn't recommend the route in the wet, but it was fine for us. A little confusing towards the end as the road keeps forking with one way no longer being passable, just follow the most used looking path.

Beautiful road, takes a couple of hours longer than the other route but much more interesting.

Enjoy.

T4A shows the track as being open. It really is a seasonal track. The best time to drive it is July or later.

Just took the 'shortcut' last month with a 4x4, 14 T. MAN truck !. Slow at time but doable in dry season. Tracks4africa very useful !. Very nice experience.

I realised you may not be talking about the track itself, but about Bridge Camp. You must have an older edition of T4A because it has been updated and reflects Bridge Camp being open.... and new management.

Campsite at Petauke
 

Not sure if this will help but we stayed at a campsite near Petauke called Zulu Kraal. It was pretty rustic but a good place to stop as you can get to Mfuew in a day with ease if traveling from Lusaka. Bridge Camp to SL is a bit of a punt but it all depends on the speed you travel at I suppose.

All the best,

Bruce

Thanks to everybody for your information, I just came back from my long ride to Southern Africa and I confirm that road from Chipata to Mfuwe is 130 km long, no tarmac but quite good gravel (it took about 3 hours), only a lot of dust from cars and trucks, but SLNP is worth a visit!


Bye