Kidepo with Dan and Anna

......... Kidepo ...............

Its a National Park that has been high on my list of priorities ever since I moved to Uganda three years ago and what better a place to start my epic Uganda Roadtrip that in Kidepo?

Dan and Anna are paddlers/teachers that I met on the Nile several years ago and with whom I have become firm friends and they too love exploring the wild places of Uganda. So we pulled out the roadmap, asked lots of questions and decided we needed at least four full days there. Two further days to drive up with a night in Kitgum en route and one day to drive back.

In Kitgum we stayed at Fugleys which is pretty much the only choice of accommodation and nice enough really. Then into Kidepo on what was a cold, rainy day ...... this did not suit us as on the way our sun roof had blown off and smashed into a million pieces and so we only had an old tarp to keep the rain off.

Luckily though the rain was not too heavy and we survived without getting too wet! On arrival at the UWA base we had to pick up a guide 'Ol Pistashio' we called him! He was more of an armed guard in the campsite against animals although on the first day he did show us the roads.

For all the other days we did our own game drives and had an absolutely glorious time. The scenery at kidepo is unbelievably beautiful with great mountains all around, fantastically elegant kopjies everywhere, long golden grass and lots of marshy swamps.

We saw massive herds of 4-500 buffalo, big herds of elephant (unfortunately heavily poached herds, most we only composed of very young calves and females no older than 10 years), giraffe, Long Faces (Heartebeasts), zebras, oribi, duiker, loads and loads of birds, and lots of lions.

On the second day we found a fresh kill with four lions on it. Three males and a female. There was a heated fight between two of the males over the buffalo kill and the guy who lost traipsed off into the grass and was lost to sight. The other three stayed with the kill for the next two days and nights so we regularly went to visit. On that fist sighting though we decided that it was a great spot for morning tea so cranked out the old charcoal 'jiko' (stove), put Anna on lion watch, Dan on photo duty and I huffed and puffed to get the dam thing going with periodic leaps into the car as the lions became interested in the strange blowing noises!

So we had a museli and banana breakfast with piping hot tea sitting on the roof of the car (farting away ..... Dan and Anna planned beans and soya chunks in EVERY meal bar breakfasts!) watching the kill.

On the other days we did lots of lovely game drives, kopjie climbing and on the final day it rained on and off all day so we stayed in camp and bird watched and looked at eles with the binoculars.

We didn't get to see leaopard but the scenery more than made up for it. Its a place I would recommend to anyone game enough to drive up there!   

The photos capture only a fraction of what we saw and most (of the good ones anyway) are from Dan Morton.

Dan and Anna

Safari car of choice - minus sunroof

Karuma Falls on the drive up

Karuma again

Karuma ... again!

Camping at Fugleys

The road into Kidepo from Kitgum

Again the road in ...

Kidepo in all its glory

Eles on the move (DM)

Silver backed jackal (DM)

Eles in the shade (DM)

Longfaces (DM)

Burchells Zebra (DM)

Lion on a buff kill (DM)

Lion having a look at us (DM)

Hooded Vulture (DM)

The starving male lion cub (DM)

The four lion cubs had been left by their mother to get on with life. In the very early stages of life on their own UWA had shot a buffalo for them so as to keep them in meat while they honed their hunting skills. A month down the line though, while the other three cubs looked ok, this young male was on his last legs and could barely walk and had no energy left what-so-ever. We gave him 3 days left to live.

Two chic ladies on Safari!

Downwards facing dog (DM)

Lion kill watching at sundown

The lion kill itself

Breakfast tea at 'Little Kitgum' on the way home

Steve's Island

Steve’s Island on Arrival

Chrissie arrived on the island (http://www.stevefisher.net/), packed so light I wasn’t sure that she had realised that she was away for almost a month!! After giving me all the packages I had ordered she barely had anything left in her bags .... and I, not being one to pack light, had two bags just for me! (that including all the tree, bird and plant ID books plus camera, binos and all the rest). We had just a day and a half on the island which of course involved catching up, swimming down Special, Dan surfing special on the boogie board and packing ready for the trip.

We intended to pick up backpackers on the way to make it all a bit cheaper so we packed an extra tent, ground mat, sleeping bag, pair of binos .. all just in case .... turns out we never met anyone to pick up until Lake Bunyoni.

In the short time at the island though there was time for a thunderstorm, time to watch Paul and Dan kayaking and time to do a water colour!

 

Murchison Falls National Park

We intended to leave Jinja early so as we could make our first campsite before dark ... but things started as they seemed to go on. Us; late on the road. We didn’t reach Karuma Falls until just after dark so did not get a good look at the campsite until morning.

The Karuma campsite was fantastic. Within ear shot of the roaring of the falls, lovely and ‘wild’ in its own way and to get the 200m or so down to the falls you have to walk down a little path that leads you through a lovely forest of Ficus and other riverine trees, all large mature trees.

We drove into the main section of the park via Chobe River Lodge and down across Antelope Plains to the ‘Top of the Falls’ on the Northern side of the river. All the antelopes were calving so there were babies everywhere and the colour of the grasses was literally lime green (I’ve not altered the photos at all!) Once at the top of the falls we made camp and went skinny dipping in the pools above Independence Falls. It was our plan to sleep out on the rocks as the constant breeze keeps the mozzies away but sadly after an incredible sunset the rain came in and put a stop to that idea!

Third and fourth nights were at the new UWA campsite at Paraa on the northern side of the river. Perfect as this allows you to miss the ferry rush hour. We had a great two days here, game drives, loads of animals, Old Idi Amin’s lodge, fry-ups on the Delta, the river cruise and I even had a snake pitch up from under the dash board and slither up my arms as they were on the steering wheel – Had to softly put on the breaks and let him go slowly out the window (he was in no rush at all!!)