Kakum National Park - Rain
Forest
Abrefo, Ghana |
Location Guide |
Kakum National Park is a piece of rainforest
350 sq kilometres in size, north of Cape Coast near Abrefo.
The main attraction is a 330 metre, 7
bridge canopy walkway, up to 43 metres above the canopy floor (over 120 feet
up). This is said to be the only such walkway in Africa. The walkway is made up of
cargo net supported aluminium ladders with planks on. Besides the one
at Kakum there are said to be four others worldwide
located in Malaysia, China and Peru.
| Kakum has the smaller forest elephants, a range
of monkeys and other animals, some quite rare, but these cannot be seen
from the walkway, partly because you are looking down onto the top of trees, and
partly as the animals tend to keep to parts of the park where there are fewer
people. You do see a range of butterflies, a few lizard like creatures and some
birds. At ground level you also come across ants or termites.
This park is around 25 miles north to south,
by over 10 miles wide, and you can go trekking further with a guide and then may
see more wildlife.
On my visit I did a tour including a short
ground level tour and then the canopy walk, with a personal local guide rather
than joining a group. She told me a lot about different trees, plants, and the
history, I got to see the walkway from the ground, realizing just how far up it
was, before going onto it. The terrain involves a long
climb up from the reception and exhibition area, then an undulated trip
around at ground level before climbing further up the hillside and then a
walkway to the rope walkway above the rainforest. The walkway comes off high
ground so there is no major climb necessary to get onto the walkway. The
terrain is not extremely steep but is steep over a long distance, and even
with regular breaks I found this the most strenuous thing I did while in
Ghana.
The walkway does sway, but its not as scary as
I expected as you tend to see the tops of the trees rather than the 12 storey
drop to the floor below. As you step onto and come off of the walkways onto
platforms between then the movement that the walkway can make is limited. |
A Termite Mound |
We have a fuller and more
varied set of photographs in the
Kakum National Park
Photo Gallery
|
Page Ref: Kakum |
Classification: Wildlife |
Date Updated: 01/2009 |
|
|
Please let us know any other information that we
can add to the Grid(s) or page and any errors that you discover. Before making a long trip to any location it is always
wise to double check the current information, websites like magazines may be
correct at the time the information is written, but things change and it is of
course impossible to double check all entries on a regular basis. If you have
any good photographs that you feel would improve the illustration of this page
then please let us have copies. In referring to this page it is helpful if you
quote both the Page Ref and Classification from the Grids above. To print the
planning grid select it then right click and print the selected area.
Please submit information on locations you discover so
that this system continues to grow.
|
