Nyika is Malawi's oldest and largest national park, and it looks nothing like anywhere else in the country. The plateau sits around two thousand metres up and keeps going — bare, rolling grassland folded into hills, with pockets of evergreen forest tucked into the valleys and almost no trees on the tops. People who arrive expecting Africa find something closer to the Scottish Highlands, and then a herd of roan antelope walks across it.
The game here is plains game rather than big cats: roan antelope in numbers you will not see elsewhere, eland, zebra, reedbuck and bushbuck, with leopard present but rarely seen. What Nyika is quietly famous for is flowers — a couple of hundred orchid species, and a wildflower season after the rains that turns the grassland into something extraordinary.
It is high, so it is cold. Nights on the plateau drop close to freezing in June and July, and that surprises people who have spent the previous week on the lake.
Best time to visit Nyika National Park
May to October for game, December to March for flowers
The dry months give firm roads and the best animal viewing, with the grass short and the antelope out in the open. The wildflowers and orchids come with the rains from December into March, when the plateau is at its most beautiful and its hardest to drive. Bring proper warm clothes whenever you go — it is genuinely cold at night all year.
Getting there
The usual route is through Rumphi, then west on a rough road to the Thazima gate — roughly a hundred kilometres that takes a good deal longer than the distance suggests, and needs a vehicle with clearance. It pairs naturally with Livingstonia and the northern lakeshore, which are on the same side of the country.
