tanzania: two southern parks and the spice islands

Not hard, but it is seasonal and it carries an age limit.

Walks in both parks go out with a qualified guide and an armed park ranger, slowly, over a few kilometres, stopping to read tracks and look at plants, so they turn on what you notice rather than what you cover and ordinary fitness is enough.

The timing is the catch. Walking in southern Ruaha runs from about the end of June to the beginning of December, and the camp on the Rufiji offers guided walks alongside drives, boating and fishing, with nobody under twelve on a walk or at its fly camp.

Starts are early, before the heat builds. Closed shoes with grip and neutral colours matter more than any specialist kit.

It is two nights away from the main camp under canvas, and it has to be arranged before you travel.

The camp runs it as a three-day, two-night excursion for a minimum of two guests and a maximum of six, from mid July to mid November, weather permitting, so it only fits a dry-month trip.

Fly camping of this kind means a small tent, a bedroll and a bucket shower rather than plumbing, a fire to sit at and nothing but mesh between you and the sounds of the sand river.

It suits people who have done a few safaris and want the bush closer than a lodge allows. Tell us early and we will shape the Ruaha nights around it, because it changes them.

Ruaha is drive and foot country, the Rufiji is water country, which is why three nights and four beat a week in either.

In southern Ruaha you sit above a seasonal sand river where elephant dig down through the bed for water, kudu come to it and lion are heard from the tents at night. The park straddles the meeting point of two wildlife regions, eastern and southern, so greater and lesser kudu, sable and roan share one place.

On the Rufiji the boat is the difference: hippo, crocodile, pelicans and nesting bee-eaters from the water, a run upstream into Stiegler's Gorge, hot springs a short way inland, and a stretch of park that is a key stronghold for wild dog.

Both reward walking, and neither is crowded.

It is a floating structure moored about 250 metres off the beach, built on three levels:

• A roof deck for sunbathing by day and stars at night
• A landing deck at sea level with a shaded lounge and a bathroom
• The bedroom itself four metres down, ringed with glass so the reef is all round you

You reach it by boat and you sleep out there, with the rest of the resort a short ride away.

There is only one of them, so it books further ahead than the rooms on shore, and with three nights on Pemba on this route we would want to hold it early if you want it. Treat it as one night added to the stay rather than the shape of the whole visit.

Steep, and better suited to some divers than others.

The Pemba Channel rises towards the island's west coast in near-vertical walls, with clear blue water, drop-offs and healthy shallow reefs above them.

Some sites take beginners, and the resort's dive centre runs discover-scuba and open water courses. Others are set aside for experienced divers, with strong currents and one wall that starts at thirty metres and falls away from there, so be straight with us about what everyone holds.

Non-divers are well served. The same reefs snorkel, and inland there are guided walks in the Ngezi Forest Reserve, which has two trails and a visitor centre and shelters the Pemba flying fox, a large endemic fruit bat, and the rarely seen Pemba scops owl.

July to October, and this route argues for it more strongly than most.

All four of the places on it carry our highest rating then: both parks are dry with animals drawn to the rivers, walking in Ruaha is inside its window, the fly camp runs from mid July, and on Pemba the cool monsoon brings the clearest water of the year, with the walls at their best in August and September.

June is nearly as strong in the parks, a little greener.

November to February turns both parks green and quiet, which suits birding, and on the coast February is the strongest of the hot months, with game more scattered as the trade.

Leave March, April and May alone: that is the long rains, both camps are shut, and the resort on Pemba closes through April and May.