Travel deep dive
Liwonde and Majete: A River Park and a Woodland Reserve in the Shire Valley
The Shire river leaves the southern end of Lake Malawi and flows south through two of the country's wildlife parks. Liwonde National Park lies on its upper reaches, where elephants and hippos live along the banks and much of the game viewing is done from a boat. Majete Wildlife Reserve lies far downstream, in the hot, wooded lower Shire valley south-west of Blantyre. Both have had their wildlife restored, with animals brought back to them, and each is a stop of a night or two on a road trip through the south of Malawi.
Updated 2026-10-05
Liwonde on the upper Shire
Liwonde National Park stretches along the Shire north of the town of Liwonde. The river is lined with reed beds and lagoons, tall palms stand on the floodplain, and further from the water the land turns to dry woodland with baobabs. Elephants and hippos live along the river in numbers, crocodiles lie on its sandbanks and waterbuck graze the floodplain. Lion, leopard, cheetah, black rhino and sable antelope also live in the park, and the river and its lagoons carry a rich birdlife, fish eagles and kingfishers among it.
Boats, drives and walks in Liwonde
The boat on the Shire is what sets Liwonde apart. Trips leave from the camps on the river in the early morning and the late afternoon and drift along banks where hippos rest in the shallows, crocodiles lie on the sand and elephants come down to drink and bathe. Game drives follow the tracks of the floodplain and the woodland, and walks with a park guide take a slower look at tracks, smaller animals and birds.
Majete in the lower Shire valley
Majete Wildlife Reserve lies on the west bank of the Shire, south-west of Blantyre, in hilly country under dense woodland. The lower Shire valley is among the hottest parts of Malawi, and Majete feels it, above all in the weeks before the rains. Lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and black rhino all live in the reserve — the Big Five — with hippos in the river and antelope in the woodland. Game drives follow a network of tracks through the woodland and along the river, and walks are led by park guides.
Staying in the parks
Both parks have lodges and tented camps inside their boundaries, and more places to stay lie beside them. An entrance fee is charged for each park. Drives, boat trips and walks are led by guides who know the park and are arranged through the lodge, and outside the camps a visitor walks only with a guide. Both parks lie low in the Shire valley, so malaria tablets are a question for a travel clinic well before the trip, as part of the health preparation for Malawi.
Liwonde or Majete
The two parks suit different parts of a trip. Liwonde is the river park, at its best from a boat, and it lies on the road between the southern lakeshore at Cape Maclear and Zomba and the highlands of the south. Majete is the drier woodland reserve, reached from Blantyre by the road down the escarpment into the lower Shire valley, and it fits the end of a trip through the south. Many trips take in both, with the drive between them by way of Zomba and Blantyre.