A popular destination for hikers and birdwatchers, the Udzungwa Mountains are renowned for their lovely scenery and wealth of rare and endemic wildlife.
Partially protected since 1992 within a 1,990-square-kilometre national park, the Udzungwa Mountains are unique within East Africa for supporting an unbroken closed-canopy forest cover spanning 250 metres to more than 2,000 metres above sea level. The range is also the largest and most biodiverse in Tanzania's the Eastern Arc Mountains, an archipelago of ‘montane islands’ sometimes dubbed the African Galápagos as a result of its high level of endemism. The park is most easily explored on foot via a network of day trails that lead from the main gate to various pretty waterfalls.
On the way, you pass through lowland forest inhabited by two endemic monkey species (Udzungwa red colobus and Sanje crested mangabey) along with the bizarre chequered elephant shrew and various elusive small antelope species.