Kakum National Park – What terrified Tinyteddy!

Ok some controversy. Ghana claims that they have the longest canopy walkway in Africa, however Lekki national park in Lagos make the same claim about theirs. Frankly I am not sure, except for national pride being at stake, if it really matters as both of them are awesome.

Kakum is situated about 90 minutes from Cape Coast some of which is on an extremely bad road. It covers 350 sq kilometers of rain forest

. If you are not taking a tour it’s very simple to book a taxi to take you, wait and bring you back. One tip is to do this very early in the morning when the animals, especially monkeys and birds (of which there are 266 species) are active. I only got there after 10 so the animals had basically retreated back into the jungle. Never mind onwards and definitely upwards.

The canopy walkway, which is the main attractions is split into 7 walkways stretching 330 meters and 43 meters above the canopy floor. If you are scared of heights you are certainly not going to enjoy it.  

You will have to join a tour once you get to the park but the fee is small and apart from the canopy your guide will also tell you about the plants and wildlife which as I said if you are not there first thing you are probably not  going to see any. We were surprised to discover that the park has elephants but these have really retreated far into the jungle.

There were some rather curious looking mushrooms.

A huge tree that we were told back in the day would have been covered and used as someone’s home (it was bigger than my bedroom back home).

There is a nice café and gift shop which are worth checking out as well as the rather nice sign with the rules.

Our only wildlife spotting other than the lizard was this centipede that scared poor tinyteddy out of his tiny skin.

Tinyteddy’s feedback: “Picture this.and i am not trying to be a drama queen. I was sitting quietly on the tree trunk listening to the fascinating lecture by our guide, when I spotted this centipede eyeing me up on a neighbouring tree and literally heading my way. Talk about going into meltdown. That centipede could have strangled the life blood out of me. Luckily someone had the fortitude to see the impending danger and I was plucked from danger just seconds from disaster. Phew still shaking!”