Victoria Falls - Mosi-o-Tunya National Park, Zambia

Africa's fourth longest river finds its 2700 kilometre journey from the north-western corner of Zambia to the Indian Ocean interrupted by a 1.7 km-long World Heritage site. Named by the British explorer, David Livingstone, for his Queen, Victoria Falls draws 3000 visitors a month to view the Zambezi's photogenic free-fall.

Livingstone died in 1873 in Zambia, home to the source of the river which was to immortalise him. When he died, his loyal bearers, Sussi and Chuma, carried his embalmed body for two years through bush fraught with tooth and claw, to Dar es Salaam where they delivered his remains to be shipped home to Britain and interred in Westminster Abbey with royal honours. Sussi and Chuma got no such recognition. Until now.

Mosi-o-Tunya National Park

Mosi-o-Tunya National Park begins 5 kilometres above the Falls and its 15 kilometres of river frontage and riparian forest and 10 ½ kilometres of woodland is home to wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, impala, baboon, elephant and Zambia's last remaining population of white rhino. Star of Africa's luxury lodge, Sussi and Chuma, is one of only two lodges that lie within the borders of the Mosi-o-Tunya National Park in a part of the park called Fairylands.

Riparian and swamp vegetation cover less than 5% of the National Park area. Confined mainly to the edge of the Zambezi, these two habitats contain the highest diversity of fauna and flora in the park. Sussi and Chuma has 300m of river frontage with more than 400 species of birds including the apparently very exciting ccurrence of Peters' Finfoot, which if you're a birder, may mean something to you.