A man ahead of his time, Norman Carr broke the mould of track-and-hunt safari and created conservation based tourism.

Within these woodland savannahs are larger patches of grassland, so that grazers such as zebra and leaf browsers such as giraffe are found in profusion in the same areas.

Patches of flooded grassland habitats (floodplains) are found close to the river, on which hippopotamus graze at night.

It also represents something of a natural barrier to human migration and transport, no roads cross it and this has helped conserve its wildlife.

Although this park is generally well-protected from poaching, its black rhinos were extirpated by 1987, and the elephant population has been under serious pressure at times.

The main settlement of the park is actually outside its eastern boundary at Mfuwe, and it has an airport which has flights to Lusaka, the Lower Zambezi and Lilongwe in Malawi.