Travel reviews by Marsh harriers from UK

"The food at Nkwali was exceptionally good - the best we experienced on our trip.

The only downside was the length of time getting into the park each time (either main gate or raft across the river). However the Nkwali management managed to circumvent this on two occasions by getting a boat directly across to a waiting car.

Highlights: Beautiful setting, elephants visiting the camp for a wallow on our first day, great leopard interaction on the last night drive."

"Exceptional game viewing here from mating lions on the way into the camp, mother and daughter leopard stalking and on a kill at night, leopard active in a sausage tree by day and a walk where we were close to lions elephant and buffalo. Branston, our guide, appears to have a great knack of spotting leopard!"

"Kawaza was everything we had hoped for and more. Very relaxed on both sides leading to great interaction with the local population. We have given an excellent score for everything because everything was done to make us feel as comfortable as possible.

On the school visit it helped to take along a few pictures from our life in the UK - everyone was so interested in how we live as well! A very humbling experience and a must for anyone who wants a real feel of Africa as well as looking at animals."

"Lovely ambience at this camp. Katherine helped us to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary with a surprise champagne breakfast by the river during our bush walk - a walk that also included lions, elephants, buffalo, giraffe and a 4 metre long python!

More leopard sightings and the bird life, as at all camps, was excellent."

"Very relaxed atmosphere but professionally run. Nothing was too much trouble and the view from Room 4 was one of our best ever! Great opportunity to interact with the local population who were extremely friendly and wanted nothing except a look at the photograph we had just taken. A wonderful memorable time here, not least the singing in the cathedral and in St Marks Church on Sunday morning.

We feel that there may be a communication problem between Kaya mawa, Nkwichi and Willderness. When we arrived at Likoma, Kaya mawa were not expecting us until later and only turned up at the airstrip to take other clients back. We were supposed to transfer from Kaya Mawa to Nkwichi at 11.00 but the boat didn't arrive until 17.00. Kaya Mawa did everything possible (not helped by lack of reliable communication with Nkwichi) but Nkwichi were expecting an arrival from the airstrip.

There were also problems on leaving Nkwichi when the leaving time was changed several times (but this was partly due to Air Malawi Lilongwe to Joburg changing flight times). The other problem appears to Likoma airstrip. Our pilot in complained to the "security man" there about pot holes not being filled in and the next day another plane crash landed on the strip. Judging from news reports on the web about this, Likoma appears to be one of the worst places in Malawi to land and maybe Expert Africa can exert some influence as a result of this crash to help get somethingdone about this.

However this didn't upset ou time in Kaya Mawa or Nkwichi in any way - both were brilliant."

"Apart from the transfer (detailed in the Kaya Mawa details), our stay was exceptional. The staff were so helpful and our trips out (including one to the farm project were interesting and the effort that they are putting in to the Manda Conservation project is amazing - the team are so passionate about it.

The site is stunningly beautiful with a great beach. Our room was amazing with birds, vervet monkeys and baboons visting the Merula tree above our lodge at daybreak - perfect start to the day, along with the coffee delivered at the same time! And the sand really does squeak when you walk on it! The choir visit on the beach on the last evening was magic!

One thought - Nkwichi is more like a safri lodge in style than Kaya Mawa, which is slightly more "sophisticated". It would appear more logical to visit Nkwichi first and then move to Kaya Mawa at the end of the holiday."