19th January - Murchison Falls NP

No row at check out as Shindishi picked up the food bill.  Breakfast consisted of 3 huge plates of fruit (one would have been enough for the 3 of us), a huge flask of water and a tea pot full of hot milk, some T-bags and eggs.  We did order bacon and our waiter beamed and nodded, but no bacon materialised.

Karinna Falls

We then drove for about 2.5 hours to Karinna Falls - our last contact with the Victoria Nile.  We drove over a bridge (no photos allowed) and had to drive up the hill a short way so we were away from the police check posts.  There, we took our photos of the falls in the distance.  Apparently, they’re not as impressive as they used to be as the Chinese have built a huge dam just upstream.

Jicana

From there, we drove towards Murchison NP for another 2 hours or so.  The local land was on the right-hand side of the road, and they were doing a lot of burning to get ready for the wet season planting.  Eventually, we arrived at the NP and had to register and pay the entrance fee.  From there, it was another 23km to Paraa lodge on the banks of the Albert Nile.  We saw some animals and birds but didn’t linger as had to be at the lodge for lunch.  We saw giraffe, elephant, wart hogs, jicanas (wading birds) and, new to us, Ugandan Kobs and Jackson’s Hartebeest.

Like a lot of Africans, Shindishi mispronounces his L’s and R’s and transposes them.  So, Giraffe become Gilaffe and we have to be ready by “tlee o’ crock”.  It takes some getting used to, but I’ve got my ear tuned to it now.

The Chinese funded road with construction traffic

Rather sadly, oil has been discovered in Murchison Park by the Chinese and they are now building an enormous road (more like a runway) through the NP for access and to move heavy machinery.  It’s a real eyesore and very depressing as one can’t imagine the inevitable stream of huge trucks stopping for wild life trying to cross the road.  They’ve even started building a huge bridge across the Nile for their machines as the local chug-chug ferry just won’t do.  We wonder how long it will be before the NP is completely decimated?  Worrying, as it’s the oldest and largest (4860 km sq) so what hope is there for the others?

Ugandan Kobs

At 3pm, we went out for another game drive.  We had to drive for about 30 minutes to the open savannah area.  This time we stopped to look at the various animals and admired the hartebeest and saw lots of the very shy Oribis - a small antelope which pair for life so you just see 2-3 of them depending on if they have a baby with them or not.  There are loads of Ugandan Kobs, a medium sized reddish antelope in large groups - the males have large curved horns used for fighting and establishing dominance.

Gilaffe

We all agreed that we have never seen so many giraffe or warthogs before.  We’ve seen towers of over 60 giraffe wandering around looking very stately.  On closer inspection though most have patches of roughened skin on them, which is apparently due to a fungus.  We also saw a couple of giraffe with what looked like club feet, but are sadly due to damage caused by poacher snares when the wires get trapped around their feet.

Female Giant Hornbill

We went looking for the elusive shoebill which is really only found in Uganda and is top of my list of things to see on this trip.  We were unlucky this time, but saw a leopard tortoise on the road as compensation.  We also had great sightings of the giant hornbill - I have seen them before but in the distance walking away from me.  This time, we saw several pairs and even got photos of both the male and female birds displaying on separate rocks - a real privilege.

We were returned to the lodge by 7.30pm and shot upstairs for a drink and then our buffet supper.  Both Chris and I had the freshly cooked to order Nile Perch which really is very tasty.

We got back to our room at about pm and C and I sat outside with a brandy to mark the end of his 59th year!!  We then showered and went to bed as have to be up at 5.30am for C’s big birthday surprise.