LAND OF GIANTS

From bulbous baobab trees and towering goliath herons to stalking prides of big cats, Ruaha National Park is a land of astonishing sights - and statistics. This is the largest protected wildlife area in Tanzania, and one of the most biodiverse in East Africa, yet it receives just a tenth of the visitor numbers of the country's more famous Serengeti. A new 'citizen science experience' aims to change that, offering hands-on conservation experiences in the heart of the park's wild Usangu Wetlands

- BEN LERWILL

Msembe Airstrip is no hightech air hub. It's a stripe of red earth in the depths of the Tanzanian outback, with bushwillow shrubs and baboons in place of a departure lounge. Hawk eagles perch just off the runway and colourful lizards scuttle in the dust. It has an unassuming, middle-of-nowhere feel - but don't be fooled. The airstrip is a portal to a land of giants. Minutes away from where my little Cessna has buzzed down to land, I stare half-dazed as a large herd of elephants plods past a baobab tree.

There's a rare beauty to a mature baobab tree. It towers over the grasslands like some sort of biological error, its trunk vast and lumpen and its branches fat and twisted. In its sheer girth, it's a miracle. "We call them lifetime trees," says guide Gerald Minja, cutting the engine of his Land Cruiser. The baobab stands stoic in the hot July sun. "Every three feet of circumference represents 100 years of growth," says Gerald. It makes the specimen in front of us at least a millennium old. The elephants file past, accustomed to this sort of thing, silent save for their steady progress through the brushwood.

Here in little-visited Ruaha National Park - the largest protected wildlife area in Tanzania, and one of the most biodiverse in East Africa - the sights and statistics are often improbably sized. My two-part trip is taking me to a new conservation camp in the park’s remote southern wetlands, but I’m starting in the more traditional safari confines of Jabali Ridge. The lodge is set on a rocky outcrop above the savannah and showcases two contrasting types of luxury. There’s the cultivated kind — wide balconies, four-poster beds, a breeze-cooled spa — and the more organic kind, where the surroundings serve up widescreen drama for fun.