21st January - Murchison Falls NP

Lions blocking the road

We got up at 6am this morning which was difficult as neither C or myself had slept particularly well.  The game drive started at 7am just as it was getting light.  It was a bit of a disappointment as didn’t see a huge amount of game or birds.  The highlight was some lions lying on the road with very full bellies.  At this point, our car broke down as it had a flat battery, even though it’s only 4 months old.  Shindishi managed to bump start the car thanks to a push from another vehicle and after that, didn’t switch the engine off again.

Our 1st leopard this trip....
He was trying to find leopard for us, but although one had been spotted in a tree, it took fright when some people got out of their car, so had long gone by the time we got there.  He also tried to find us the elusive shoebill, but due to the bad flooding last year the Nile is higher than usual and has flooded a lot of its natural habitat.  Chris did spot some bee-eaters in a tree and we were thrilled to find out they were new to us - the beautiful swallow tailed bee-eater.

About half way through the game drive, Mum and I fell asleep but apparently didn’t miss anything, thank goodness.  We returned to the lodge just after midday for lunch and go out again at 3pm.

A much more fruitful game drive this afternoon.  We finally got to see a leopard!  It was a quite a distance away and sitting upright on a horizontal branch in a spreading Acacia tree.  After the 2 other vehicles left, Shindishi was very naughty and left the track to go off-piste to see if we could get closer.  However, the leopard got spooked and jumped off the tree and melted into the thicket....but it was worth trying.  We also got very close to some ground hornbills, saw some rare and very shy Bushbuck and ended our drive watching a huge bull elephant with magnificent tusks crossing the road just behind our vehicle.  All in all, most satisfactory.

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