Katavi is vast at about 5000 square kilometers and it is very very remote, another of the BBC Wildlife top wilderness areas on this planet. Katavi is teeming with wildlife, the quantity and variety of which is unmatched anywhere else in Africa.

Facilites are very limited, with just one camp in the park - with one means of getting there - air. The journey takes about four hours from Arusha, including a refuelling stop at Tabora. This is the safari location for the seasoned group who are looking for the true wilderness experience and a safari to top all safaris.

The highlights are the huge number of hippo, elephant and like the small number of previous visitors you will probably get the feeling that this is what Africa must have been like 200 years ago.

The park is centred around two dried up lakes, which for most of the year are large tracts of flat, open grassland, but during the wet season turn into swamps. In the dry season a huge proportion of the wildlife heads for the "lakes" and the few small permanent water sources. The springs and pools get packed sardine-like with hippos, crocodiles and elephants too.

There are two or three major pools where the hippos are packed in very tightly in a very small area. The main pool at the ranger post sometimes contains as many as 3200 hippos, whilst a similar number will be in a nearby pool.

Sharing these shrinking pools of water during the dry season are some good sized crocodiles and maribou storks, which pull the wriggling catfish out of the mud.

Known as "the big fig", an ancient tree stands in a central position in the park, and to sit under this tree for a few hours is one of life's great moments. Especially if the wildlife show going on around you includes large herds of buffalo, giraffe, zebra, waterbuck, warthog and hundreds of species of bird.

So if you want to avoid traffic jams on the savannah, plan to visit Katavi next time.