16th January - Entebbe to Jinja (Source of the Victoria Nile)

Jinja - the source of the White Nile

We were told that we needed to have breakfast at 7am and be ready to leave at 8 am sharp.  As we weren’t that bothered about breakfast, having eaten quite late the previous evening, we decided to set the alarm for just after 7am and see how we went.  As it transpired, we needed the alarm!!  I shot into the shower and then went down to Mum’s room to wake her up, only to find the room empty and we presumed she had already gone down to breakfast.  We met her down there and managed a quick cup of tea and an omelette before checking out.

View from The Haven lodge dining area

We then had a 3 hour drive to Jinja which meant we had to go on the partly completed ring road around Kampala.  It was a really interesting drive as we motored steadily through various towns and land laid down to crops and fruit trees - lots of mango, jackfruit, passion fruit, bananas and pineapples.  Crop-wise we saw wheat, maize, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, eggplants and cassava.

We finally left the tarmac road and had a short drive on a bumpy track to The Haven, our lodge for tonight.  Wow - what a special and spectacular location.  It sits on the banks of the Victoria Nile and overlooks a series of waterfalls - the noise of the crashing water is incredibly loud interspersed with bird song.  It’s all incredibly lush and green here and I could easily drink in this view for a very long time without getting bored.

Woodland Kingfisher

After lunch, we drove towards Jinja to visit the source of the Victoria Nile (the very upper part of the White Nile) and to go on a river cruise to look for wildlife.  The drive took about 45 minutes.  We were kitted out in life jackets and then gingerly climbed into an old fishing boat with the very welcome tourist addition of a shade canopy.  Our guide was called Victor and was very knowledgeable.  We were so lucky as spotted many birds including the pied, woodland and Malachite kingfishers, the snake bird or darter, cormorants and some herons.

Nile Monitor Lizard

  We were also incredibly lucky to see the rare river otters and a couple of Nile monitors lizards.  One of them was in a tree and the other was swimming and then climbed up a river bank so we had a superb view of him.  Chris got a great photo of him exploring his surroundings with his long blue tongue. We were taken to the actual source of the Nile complete with a sign which is actually a natural spring at the edge of Lake Victoria.  Apparently, 30% of the water for the White Nile is sourced from the natural spring and the rest from Lake Victoria, so it must be a huge spring.  it also takes 90 days for water to move from the source of the Nile to its delta in Egypt.  We then continued our ride along the edge of Lake Victoria to the port of Jinja where a lot of fisherman live in what looked like little corrugated hovels on the edge of the lake.

Local fisherman homes

We then drove back to the lodge and are relaxing in our swing seat on our covered terrace overlooking the falls before heading to the bar for some refreshment.  A huge storm broke whilst we were over there forcing us inside whilst it threw it down.  We ate dinner outside later though even if it was a tad chilly.