Rubondo Island Camp is the only accommodation on Africa's largest island-based national park, where guests can trek for wild chimpanzees, explore the lush forest, and fish for Nile perch on Lake Victoria.

Rubondo Island is located ion the far southwest extent of Lake Victoria, some 2 miles off the coast of the mainland. The island is uninhabited by humans other than the safari camp and is protected, along with substantial offshore lake habitat, as a national park.

Read more about Rubondo Island and its history below.

The island is home to chimpanzees, which were introduced from rescued chimps in the 1960's, but there are also giraffe, elephant, small, forest-dwelling antelopes, hippo, crocodile, other primates, and wonderful birdlife.

There are plenty of adventures to be experienced at Rubondo Island Camp, including game drives, walking safaris, chimpanzee trekking, boating, kayaking, and fishing on Lake Victoria, fly camping on the forest, and sleep outs in the treehouse. Visits to a local community on the mainland are also offered. Massages and other spa treatments are also available.

The camp has 8 beachfront cottages, one of which is a two-bedroom unit designed for a family. The cottages are very comfortable and include plumbed, en-suite facilities with hot and cold water and flush toilets. The veranda in front of each tent offers superb views over the shoreline and eastward onto Lake Victoria.

Meals are often enjoyed al-fresco, either on the dining deck in front of the maim lodge or on the sandy beach. The main area includes a comfortable lounge, indoor dining space, a bar, and "The Nest", which is a library and information centre offering excellent materials about the island and its wildlife. The camp's relaxing swimming pool and sundeck are a lovely place to spend some time between activities.

The Rubondo Island experience is an excellent inclusion to add diversity to a Serengeti safari.

About RUBONDO ISLAND

Rubondo Island is located in the far southwest of Lake Victoria, lying just over 2 miles (3.5 kms) offshore from the Tanzanian mainland at its closest point.

Established in 1965 as a game reserve, Rubondo Island (upgraded to a national park in 1977) is one of two Tanzanian island national parks in Lake Victoria (the other being Saanane NP). Covering the entirety of the main island of Rubondo in the extreme southwest corner of the lake, the park's boundaries also incorporate eleven minor rocky islets and surrounding offshore water.

In total, the park protects 176 square miles (457 sq kms), of which about half is land and the rest water. The main island measures 12.4 miles (28 kms) in length and is 2-6 miles (3-10 kms) wide. Rubondo Island and the surrounding islets are part of a partially submerged rift consisting of four volcanic hills linked by three flat sections.

The landscape on Rubondo is dominated by moist evergreen and semi-deciduous forest, much of which has dense understory. These forests covers around 80 percent of the island, with the remainder of the land interspersed with open grassland, Miombo woodland, and Acacia woodland.

Despite being volcanic in origin, there are granitic outcrops scattered across the main island. The eastern shore is characterized by sandy beaches and rocky areas, while the western shore is dominated by extensive papyrus swamp, bordered by date palms.

Rubondo Island has an interesting history. The island had long been inhabited by a small community of indigenous people, who survived by fishing on the lake, but in 1965, the island was made an official game reserve, which meant the island's inhabitants, numbering around 400, had to relocate to the mainland.

In 1966, Bernhard Grzimek, a trained German veterinarian and Director of the Frankfort Zoological Garden (which he had saved from ruin after the end of World War II), visited Tanzania.

Grzimek, who was also President of the Frankfurt Zoological Society, convinced the Tanzanian government to allow him to introduce sixteen chimpanzees that had been rescued from zoos and circuses onto Rubondo Island, where they were allowed to live free in the wild. The adaptable chimps thrived and the island's population now numbers over forty.

After the successful introduction of the captive-born chimpanzees, other species were introduced onto Rubondo, including elephant, black rhino, giraffe, roan antelope, black-and-white colobus, and the endangered suni antelope. The rhinos and roan didn't survive (due to poaching), but the other species are still present. In 2000, around 40 gray parrots that had been confiscated from illegal trade were released on Rubondo Island and they flourished and can be seen relatively easily.

Besides the introduced species discussed above, native wildlife that can be seen on Rubondo includes hippo, crocodile, civet, genet, spotted-necked otter, marsh mongoose, vervet monkey, bushbuck, bush pig, and sitatunga.

Birding on Rubondo is excellent, with over 400 species recorded. African fish-eagles are particularly abundant, and there are a variety of kingfishers, herons, storks, bee-eaters, raptors, and forest dwellers that will keep any avid birder busy each day on the island. Butterfly enthusiasts will love Rubondo and those interested in botany will enjoy seeing some of the over forty species of orchid that grow on the island.

Rubondo is one of Tanzania's best preserved wildlife destinations, but attracts only a small number of tourists. Rubondo Island Camp is the only accommodation and it offers an excellent experience.

The best time to visit Rubondo depends on your interest: the dry season (June-October) is best for clear skies and good weather, but the rainy months (November-December and March-May) are best for flowers, butterflies, and the abundance of birds, with many migrant species present and breeding.

The island can be accessed by charter flight direct to the island's airstrip or by boat from the mainland.

About Lake Victoria

Considered one of Africa's "Great Lakes" (along with Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi), Lake Victoria is situated between two arms of the East African Rift.

Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by surface area and the world's largest tropical lake. Victoria is also the world's second-largest fresh water lake (by surface area), covering 23 145 square miles (59 947 sq kms); only Lake Superior in North America is larger. Using volume of water as the measure, Lake Victoria is the ninth-largest lake in the world (not including dam-created reservoirs).

Lake Victoria has a maximum depth of 276 feet (80 meters) and an average depth of 130 feet (40 meters). Like Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika, Lake Victoria is home to a high diversity of fish, most which belong to the highly evolved Cichlidae family of bony fishes (known as cichlids). Cichlid fishes have been studied for decades and have provided many clues to evolution.

Most of Lake Victoria's water (about 80%) is received by direct rainfall. The reminaing 20% of the lake's water comes in through rivers and numerous small streams. The most significant river contributing to Lake Victoria is the Kagera River, which flows into the lake on its western side. The Kagera River originates far to the south and has tributaries in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Tanzania.

The only outflow from Lake Victoria is the Victoria Nile River, which is also referred to as the White Nile. The Victoria Nile flows out of Lake Victoria on its northern side, close to the small town of Jinja (in Uganda).

Lake Victoria is shared by three countries: 45% is in Uganda, 49% is in Tanzania, and 6% is in Kenya.

The Nile Perch
The purposeful introduction of the highly predatory "Nile Perch" (Lates niloticus) into Lake Victoria in the 1950s is now viewed by ecologists as a very unfortunate human blunder. The Nile perch was introduced to Lake Victoria in hopes that they would multiply (they did) and create a source of protein and export revenue.

The plan did work, but sadly, as often happens when humans try to control nature, the result has been an ecological disaster that has resulted in the extinction of hundreds of native cichlid fish species, many of which were endemic to Lake Victoria.

The loss of hundreds of species of Lake Victoria fishes (almost all of which were cichlid fishes and most of those endemic species) notwithstanding, Lake Victoria is still home to more than 500 species of fish, which is the second-highest total (after Lake Malawi) for any lake in the world.