Sat, July 7 - Exploring Murchison Falls

We met for breakfast at 5:30 and set off shortly thereafter in the vans for a short ride to the Victoria Nile ferry.  We wanted to arrive so early as Paul knew that there would be a long line of tourist vans and others crossing to travel north. 

Nile
Sunrise

There were already quite a few vehicles lined up when we arrived and we had to wait as vans and trucks rolled onto the small, rather primitive ferry and chugged across, bearing upstream in the strong current to avoid being swept past the landing.  On the third trip we made it aboard and soon were across and into the  park.  

The Sausage Tree

 

The Tiny Oribi

We drove over open savannah and immediately began seeing various antelope including the tiny Oribi with a black scent gland on its neck.  Groups of giraffe stood about in the grassland and elephant families moved through thickets with only their broad grey backs showing through the leaves.  

Northern Carmine Bee-eaters

Ugandan Kob - the National Animal

Warthog Family

Red-throated Bee-eater

We finally approached a shrubby area and found  a large sleek lioness at rest!  She looked very healthy, as she should with all the game around.  Back in the shadows we could see her mate, but not much of his mane.  We continued on, driving down to the shore of the Albert Nile where we parked and watched hippos wallowing in the marsh as we ate our box lunches.

\Hippos Wallowing

At 2 PM we arrived back at the crossing where we boarded a small, but luxurious boat for a river tour.  The seating was very plush with lounging benches that fitted our group of seven very comfortably.  The captain took us by various birds and showed us several crocs. A family of elephants snorted at our approach and encircled the two small ones, the older females draping the babies with their trunks.

Big Croc!

We approached Murchison Falls which roared down from the hills.  We couldn’t get too close as the current is very strong, but it looked quite dramatic.  The captain offered us Nile beers, appropriately, and hors d’oeuvres and popcorn and we happily motored back to the landing at 5 PM.  It seemed like a full day to me, but, the plan was to continue birding for a while more.  Paul asked if anyone wanted to go back to the hotel and both Bob and I said “Yes!!”

Cecelia and Katy enjoy a Nile Beer!

Murchison Falls

Eriab took us back and we relaxed and showered, received a basket of our clean laundry and organized our gear for tomorrow.   At seven we walked over to the restaurant and had drinks and checked email.  I could see that the staff wanted to finish serving dinner and couldn’t  imagine what the others of our group were doing!  Finally at 8:15 they staggered in (having been out for a total of 14 hours!) and reported that they had seen a Pennant-winged Nightjar (a bird that we had previously seen at Lake Mburo) and had been attacked by tsetse flies! The flies are attracted to moving objects and when the open-topped van stopped to look at something, the flies attacked!   Most agreed that we had very wise to come back and relax!  Bob and I left for our room at 9 as the others were beginning the List.