17. Safari

Saturday 17th November 2012 



Safari Group in the Queen Elizabeth Natioanl Park

The alarm goes off at 5.45am and Sarah and I get up for a quick shower. I get my battery out of the charger where I have left it overnight but ... OMG – I have plugged it in but not put down the switch. I am going on Safari and I have no camera! We are meeting the others as arranged in the reception for a coffee and muffin as Richard is due with the vehicle at 6.30am to pick us up, so I take my charger and battery and ask the hotel receptionist to plug it in whilst we wait. Vincent, the guide we have hired to join us for the morning arrives and introduces himself. He’s ely character and assures us he will do his best to find us lions but it can’t be guaranteed because, as he reminds us, we are in a National Park covering around 2000 acres, and not a Zoo. My battery now has two bars so I just hope it doesn’t let me down by dying just at the point I have a great shot in my sights.

 

We set off and travel down the track we came along last night. Vincent announces we are now in the area where we should see plenty of elephants and it is not long before one crosses our path. We see several more, a family, on the left side of the track with a really cute baby but the parents must have trained them well as they scurry out of sight as soon as they hear the vehicle approaching. This happens several times until at last we see another group in a clearing and we are able to get a shot of the whole family including junior! It is fantastic to be so close to these wonderful animals in the wild. We watch them deftly using their trunks to grab huge amounts of vegetation and shove it into their mouths, time after time, not stopping to chew it. Vincent tells us that a fully grown elephant weighs seven tonnes and that they need to eat a huge amount every day. Everybody is snapping away, and then suddenly at the back of the vehicle, a large female elephant roars (I don’t know if elephants do roar but it was a very loud noise anyway), she raises her trunk and looks ready to charge us. Richard isn’t hanging around so he puts his foot down and drives on to another track. Looking back we can see that there are several other elephants behind a bush that we were parked quite close to, so she was obviously protecting them from what she saw as potential danger.

 

There was a fork in the track ahead and Richard took the right hand side. Soon we were seeing Uganda Kob, dozens of them, standing upright, almost posing for the camera. Not long after we saw some water buffalo, but Richard and Vincent were like two men on a mission, so we didn’t stop long to get photos. They clearly wanted to get us over to the North side of the park before it got too hot as this is where we had the best chance of spotting lions. A few minutes later we briefly stopped to get photos of a huge vulture perched on the top of a tree, but I wasn’t quick enough to snap the large lizard that darted off the track under the bushes at the side of the vehicle.

 

It is now about 7.30am and starting to feel a bit warmer, we are all hoping we will not be too late to see some lions. Vincent tells us there are several hundred in the park so we are reasonably hopeful although we do know from speaking to other people that visitors can often be disappointed. John, the Head teacher at Kisiizi School has visited Queen Elizabeth Park twice and not seen lions on either occasion. Suddenly Vincent announces he has seen one – everybody turns to look to the right and I can just about make it out, but it very much in the distance and even with a good zoom on the camera you can’t see it clearly as it is walking through grass. We drive around various tracks with Vincent and Richard keeping a lookout for signs that any others are in the area. About 10 minutes later we spot a lioness, again in the distance but not so far away this time and Sarah manages to capture her on video as she jumps into a tree. When it gets too warm, apparently they like to lie in the shade of the branches of trees to keep cool. We feel like time is running out for us to see them closer up, when suddenly we spot in the distance a group of about 6 vehicles all parked in the same place. They must be stopped for a reason – are they watching a pride we wonder. Richard turns the vehicle around and heads in the direction of the parked minibuses and 4 x 4’s. As we get nearer it is obvious everybody is watching something and then we see them ... a group of five maybe six lions – climbing up on some large bushes fairly close to the side of the road. They then move to another shrubby area and because we are at the back of the group of stationary vehicles Richard drives round the side to get nearer to the front. At first we are telling him to stop as he seems to be taking us away from a good photo position but it actually turns out to be a good call. We are in a prime position when the whole group decides to move from their current location and as they cross the track to the grassy area on the opposite side and we are able to get some great photos.

 

We are thrilled at the experience and if we don’t see anything more we will still be happy. It is now about 9am and we are due back for breakfast at Mweya Lodge for 10.30am. Vincent says we will start the journey back which should give us time to stop if we see anything else of interest. We see wart hogs, water buffalo and impala. My first safari has certainly not disappointed me and even those who have been before say it has been a brilliant experience. As we near the gates of the lodge we can see Lake Edward on our right and to the left is the Kazinga Channel. This is where we will be taking our boat trip this afternoon in search of hippos. Richard drops us off, we say goodbye to Vincent – he has been a brilliant guide and cost just 20 US dollars between six of us, so we gave a good tip. We got a table on the veranda with a magnificent view and helped ourselves to the most delicious breakfast. I chose mango juice and fresh fruit followed by an omelette, cooked to order with onions, mushrooms and cheese, and added some grilled tomatoes and crispy bacon on the side as well. The coffee was pretty good as well too. It doesn’t get much better than this.

 

It was starting to warm up so we put on our swimming costumes, got a pool towel and made ourselves comfortable on sun loungers with our books. Before long it was too hot and a few lengths of the pool were needed to cool off. When Sarah booked the hotel she had assumed the rate was for bed and breakfast so it was a real bonus to find that all meals were included and we had a three course lunch to look forward to at 2pm. I feared that any weight I may have lost last week in Kisiizi was certainly going to be put back on over the weekend. But that wasn’t going to stop me enjoying everything that was on offer, especially the ice cold Nile beer that I ordered a couple of hours later to accompany lunch.

 

Our boat trip was booked for 4.15pm so we had arranged for Richard to collect us at around 3.50pm. We were pleased to find we were in one of Mweya’s own small boats (seating 11 plus the guide) as opposed to the larger touristy double-decker ferry style craft, because this meant we could get a lot closer to the banks with a better chance of seeing the animals close up. We sailed from one side of the channel to the other and almost immediately saw hippos in the water to our left and ahead of us. They are probably bigger than I had imagined and we are told that hippos walk along the bottom underwater water only surfacing every so often to breathe. Throughout the boat trip our guide would say...Crocodile at 10 o’clock, or Kingfisher at 9 oclock etc to help us pinpoint where everything was. There were certainly far more varieties of bird than I had imagined and I managed to get quite a few good shots considering the following: 1. My camera hasn’t got a view finder 2. The glare of the sun made it difficult to see exactly where, and at what I was pointing my camera 3. I was on the right side of the boat and the best viewing was on the left. Despite not knowing whether I had captured the intended animal or bird, or whether I would be treated to an empty bush, a bare tree or an expanse of water, I happily snapped away in the knowledge that surely I would get some decent photos. I did get a few duff ones but I also managed to snap some pretty good ones including a huge bird in full flight with a massive wingspan (I must find out what species it is).

 

The boat trip lasted 2 hours and it was fantastic. It definitely exceeded my expectations and we spent ages reviewing our photos in reception when we got back to the hotel. We had a shower and met again in the bar for a pre dinner drink where I was delighted to find their extensive range of spirits included Pernod, so had one with a Sprite. The drinks were served with some tasty roasted nuts which Beccy told me were available in huge packs at one of the shops (wooden sheds) near the hospital for 500 shillings(about 12p) and that is asked nicely, Philip would roast them for me. Note to self: Must remember to do that on Monday.