Colourful Lizard at QENP
Shopping time at Lake Bunyonyi - taxi rank, Uganda
And the lovely Gorillas in Rwanda, family group
Mum and 8 month baby
The Gorilla blog will follow soon, hopefully!
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
A few more pics - part 7
A Cob, for you Mum!
Colourful Lizard at QENP
Shopping time at Lake Bunyonyi - taxi rank, Uganda
And the lovely Gorillas in Rwanda, family group
Mum and 8 month baby
The Gorilla blog will follow soon, hopefully!
Colourful Lizard at QENP
Shopping time at Lake Bunyonyi - taxi rank, Uganda
And the lovely Gorillas in Rwanda, family group
Mum and 8 month baby
The Gorilla blog will follow soon, hopefully!
A few more pics - part 6
Black and White Colobus monkey at Lake Nkuruba
Yes!! Sue fishing on Lake Albert, Uganda
Gone for lunch?
Oh and me at it too!!
Crossing equator in Uganda
Yes!! Sue fishing on Lake Albert, Uganda
Gone for lunch?
Oh and me at it too!!
Crossing equator in Uganda
A few more pics - part 5
Amazing African cattle having a swim
A light load, believe me they get much bigger!
Another amazing cow with HUGE horns
Ladies sifting rice in Hoima, Uganda
Lake Nkuruba, Uganda
A light load, believe me they get much bigger!
Another amazing cow with HUGE horns
Ladies sifting rice in Hoima, Uganda
Lake Nkuruba, Uganda
A few more pics - part 4
Flamingos on Lake Bogorio, Kenya
What a stink at the Lake Bogorio hot springs!
The hot springs!
Somewhere in western Kenya, name escapes me!
Murchison Falls, Uganda
What a stink at the Lake Bogorio hot springs!
The hot springs!
Somewhere in western Kenya, name escapes me!
Murchison Falls, Uganda
A few more pics - part 3
Fasilidas' palace in Gonder, Ethiopia
Buying spices in Gonder market
Sunrise at Lake Tana, Ethiopia
Crossing the Koroli Desert in Western Kenya
On the way to Maralal in Kenya
Buying spices in Gonder market
Sunrise at Lake Tana, Ethiopia
Crossing the Koroli Desert in Western Kenya
On the way to Maralal in Kenya
A few more Pics - part 2
Amazing Lalibella in Ethiopia
more Lalibella ...
more Lalibella ... kind of liked the place!!
Colourful church in Ethiopian Highlands
On the road to Axum, Ethiopia, time for coffee ... oh and haircuts
more Lalibella ...
more Lalibella ... kind of liked the place!!
Colourful church in Ethiopian Highlands
On the road to Axum, Ethiopia, time for coffee ... oh and haircuts
A few more Pics - part 1
Sue's favorite buck, a Gerenuk or ET as she calls them
On the long road to Moyale, time for coffee and plug Paul and Lizzie's radiator ... again!
Ah delicious Ethiopian injera and some fasting food!
Anyone need a reliable runner, one careful owner
Our new house, well one of many new homes being built in Ethiopia, gets covered in mud next
On the long road to Moyale, time for coffee and plug Paul and Lizzie's radiator ... again!
Ah delicious Ethiopian injera and some fasting food!
Anyone need a reliable runner, one careful owner
Our new house, well one of many new homes being built in Ethiopia, gets covered in mud next
Friday, 19 September 2008
The Queen Elizabeth NP, Lake Bunyonyi, and Me
Well I guess when you are someone important then you get things named after
you! I am not aware that HRH has set foot inside 'her' park since her visit
some 50 years ago although Prince Phillip was here only a couple of years
back (probably to shoot some animals) but I would think she might be a bit
sad at the current state of the place. Now don't get me wrong it is nice and
will potentially one day be great again but there is a long way to go until
then. The wildlife is still recovering from the bad years in Uganda and the
infrastructure is still somewhere short of perfect. But despite all that we
had a great 3 nights there.
Leaving Semliki on the Sunday morning after much deliberation of whether to
stay or not was quite easy in the end. It was a great spot up at Ntoroko and
we felt we could have stayed there a few days. However Sunday morning came,
another bright sunny morning, and we felt we had to move on. The disturbance
of staff from the Semliki Lodge preparing a boat for guests to 'hunt down'
the Shoebill made it feel like we had lost our perfect spot, so we set of to
the QENP. Stopping off briefly in Fort Portal again to buy beers and visit
the market we then took the good tar road all the way to the park via
Kasese.
Our first stop before reaching the park, the Equator again. No song and
dance at this crossing, no shops, no buckets of swirling water, just a
couple of signs and a photo opportunity. Then we stopped off briefly at the
QENP information centre to chat to Moses, yep he works there, and try and
glean some information on the available campsites. Suitably armed with the
required information, we then proceeded to the Kabatoro Gate to pay our fees
and head for camp. As usual we can never fully decide on a plan so we paid
fees for a single night with the option of topping them up if needed. Our
destination was a bush camp just down the track from Mweya called Campsite 1
(S0 10.678 E29 55.104). Good name, and the one next to it is called, yep
Campsite 2. Despite the unimaginative name the site was perfect. Just us and
the bush, positioned high up above the channel that links Lake Edward and
Lake George. Facilities, pit latrine. It was a delightful place despite the
annoying little flies that pestered us. After a peaceful night, no wild
animals in camp, we popped along to Mweya to pay for the camping and also
top up our park fees as we had made a plan to stay in the park for 3 nights.
Whist there we topped up the water tanks, had some breakfast, and then set
off to see the wildlife. The Queen has a couple of tracks named in her
honour too, and the Leopard track was presumably named after all the
Leopards in the area, assuming there are actually any there as we saw none.
The bush is quite dense in that area of the park and spots were few and far
between. Quite a few birds were around, and we saw one nice herd of
Elephant, a few Cobs, and the odd Warthog. After exiting that area of the
park at the Katunguru Gate we headed east across the main road to the
Kasenyi area with the possibility of lions. This area is not gated so we did
wonder if you actually needed to pay to drive in it at first but then we
were stopped by two UWA rangers who checked our park fee receipt. It was
much more open in Kasenyi but still fairly quiet on the animal front. There
very well might be Lions but alas we saw none, just average numbers of Cob,
Waterbuck, and Buffalo. It was a pleasant drive but as time was pushing on
we made tracks back to the main road and crossed the Kazinga Channel that
divides the park north / south and before entering again popped along to see
the Kyambura Gorge and have lunch. The gorge is quite impressive but not awe
inspiring. Driving up to it you would never know it was there as it is a
huge rift in the fairly flat landscape. It is best described as a sunken
forest and is home to some habituated Chimpanzees.
Re-entering the NP our aim was initially the Jacana Camp but we never saw
the turning. The road that passes thru this section of the park is a public
road and thus busy with trucks in transit between Uganda and the DRC. We did
get stuck in a traffic jam at a bridge. A road work water tanker that had
filled its belly from the poor dwindling stream had broken down where they
had parked it blocking the bridge. Thankfully only about 30 minutes later
normal service was resumed and we managed to skip past the queue of trucks
that had built up. As Jacana was not an option we amended our plan to stay
at Ishasha Camp instead (S0 37.154 E29 39.668). Blimey the place was busy,
probably 3 separate tour groups, and not our peaceful bush camp from the
previous night. The facilities were not much better, pit latrine and a cold
shower, but it was just fine. This is where our visit to the park hit a
downturn. That night I slept for only about 10 minutes, nothing to do with
the warthogs and Hippos snorting and snuffling in the camp. (Sue's comment -
loads of hippos were munching around the car and she got to watch them -
brave me, Matt was too knackered to look). The following morning I was
knackered and had no energy. I initially put it down to dehydration and we
relaxed for the day and I drank plenty of water. It was quiet in camp as
everyone else had packed up and left so we had a nice day despite my
ailment. Peace and quiet was briefly interrupted in the afternoon by a
thunderstorm, but thankfully come nightfall I had managed the odd doze here
and there and caught some good sleep overnight too.
Feeling somewhat better the following morning we packed up camp early and
went for a game drive. Plenty of Cob, Elephant, Buffalo, and some good new
bird spots, but not a sight of the alleged 'Tree Climbing Lions' that live
in the area. So instead of staying another night we hit the road just before
lunch to Kabale and Lake Bunyonyi. Mufasa's belly was getting a touch light
as we had not filled up since Kampala some 1200km ago, so a quick splash and
dash in Kihihi, and then the slow road thru the hills down to Kabale. All
was going so well and then we hit a snag. As usual we passed all sorts on
the road and most of the people wave and gesture as if they want you to stop
so they can hitch a lift of ask for 'gifts'. One chap was most insistent but
we just passed on by. About 10 minutes later we found out why, the road was
shut. A river had flooded the road and the main road we needed was only
about 2km past the river. We had seen no other road for miles and had
visions of having to drive most of the 100km back to where we had come from
before finding an alternative. Backtracking up the hill we this time stopped
at the chap who had tried to stop us previously. 'Why didn't you stop' he
asked 'I was going to tell you the road is closed!'. We tried to explain
that if we stopped for every frantically waving person we would have only
travelled about 100km in 4 months! Anyway, he kind of explained that there
was a 'new' road around the problem and we eventually found it. Road, or
narrow muddy track down the side of a hill? Things came to a halt briefly
when we met a pickup coming up the track. After some negotiation and
manoeuvring we managed to get around it and continued down the 'perilous'
descent. Things were not much better when we eventually reached the main
road as that was under repair.
Eventually we managed to reach Kabale and looked for bread and beer. The
muffins from the Hot Loaf Bakery were dry and more like biscuits, obviously
not a Ugandan staple, and the beer very expensive. So armed only with a loaf
of bread which we hoped would be more like bread than the muffins were
muffins we set off down to Lake Bunyonyi and the Bunyonyi Overland Camp (S1
16.314 E29 56.276). Again the night was not good and I was up several times,
now with diarrhoea, stomach ache, more than my usual quota of flatulence,
and what Sue described as 'eggy burps'. Managing to eventually make daylight
we consulted our 'what you might be dying from' medial book and diagnosed
Giardia, a form of bacterial diarrhoea. We did bring some antibiotics with
us, but not the specific one we needed. Thankfully after chatting with one
of the staff at the camp he offered to mercy dash to Kabale and try and buy
some for us, which he managed. Hopefully now I am on the mend, and we will
depart here over the weekend and head to Rwanda relatively fit and healthy
ready for the chance of spotting the Gorillas.
Our spot at the Bunyonyi camp is right on the waters edge and is very nice
indeed, and thankfully we have flushing toilets here and not a pit latrine,
what a nightmare that would have been!!!
you! I am not aware that HRH has set foot inside 'her' park since her visit
some 50 years ago although Prince Phillip was here only a couple of years
back (probably to shoot some animals) but I would think she might be a bit
sad at the current state of the place. Now don't get me wrong it is nice and
will potentially one day be great again but there is a long way to go until
then. The wildlife is still recovering from the bad years in Uganda and the
infrastructure is still somewhere short of perfect. But despite all that we
had a great 3 nights there.
Leaving Semliki on the Sunday morning after much deliberation of whether to
stay or not was quite easy in the end. It was a great spot up at Ntoroko and
we felt we could have stayed there a few days. However Sunday morning came,
another bright sunny morning, and we felt we had to move on. The disturbance
of staff from the Semliki Lodge preparing a boat for guests to 'hunt down'
the Shoebill made it feel like we had lost our perfect spot, so we set of to
the QENP. Stopping off briefly in Fort Portal again to buy beers and visit
the market we then took the good tar road all the way to the park via
Kasese.
Our first stop before reaching the park, the Equator again. No song and
dance at this crossing, no shops, no buckets of swirling water, just a
couple of signs and a photo opportunity. Then we stopped off briefly at the
QENP information centre to chat to Moses, yep he works there, and try and
glean some information on the available campsites. Suitably armed with the
required information, we then proceeded to the Kabatoro Gate to pay our fees
and head for camp. As usual we can never fully decide on a plan so we paid
fees for a single night with the option of topping them up if needed. Our
destination was a bush camp just down the track from Mweya called Campsite 1
(S0 10.678 E29 55.104). Good name, and the one next to it is called, yep
Campsite 2. Despite the unimaginative name the site was perfect. Just us and
the bush, positioned high up above the channel that links Lake Edward and
Lake George. Facilities, pit latrine. It was a delightful place despite the
annoying little flies that pestered us. After a peaceful night, no wild
animals in camp, we popped along to Mweya to pay for the camping and also
top up our park fees as we had made a plan to stay in the park for 3 nights.
Whist there we topped up the water tanks, had some breakfast, and then set
off to see the wildlife. The Queen has a couple of tracks named in her
honour too, and the Leopard track was presumably named after all the
Leopards in the area, assuming there are actually any there as we saw none.
The bush is quite dense in that area of the park and spots were few and far
between. Quite a few birds were around, and we saw one nice herd of
Elephant, a few Cobs, and the odd Warthog. After exiting that area of the
park at the Katunguru Gate we headed east across the main road to the
Kasenyi area with the possibility of lions. This area is not gated so we did
wonder if you actually needed to pay to drive in it at first but then we
were stopped by two UWA rangers who checked our park fee receipt. It was
much more open in Kasenyi but still fairly quiet on the animal front. There
very well might be Lions but alas we saw none, just average numbers of Cob,
Waterbuck, and Buffalo. It was a pleasant drive but as time was pushing on
we made tracks back to the main road and crossed the Kazinga Channel that
divides the park north / south and before entering again popped along to see
the Kyambura Gorge and have lunch. The gorge is quite impressive but not awe
inspiring. Driving up to it you would never know it was there as it is a
huge rift in the fairly flat landscape. It is best described as a sunken
forest and is home to some habituated Chimpanzees.
Re-entering the NP our aim was initially the Jacana Camp but we never saw
the turning. The road that passes thru this section of the park is a public
road and thus busy with trucks in transit between Uganda and the DRC. We did
get stuck in a traffic jam at a bridge. A road work water tanker that had
filled its belly from the poor dwindling stream had broken down where they
had parked it blocking the bridge. Thankfully only about 30 minutes later
normal service was resumed and we managed to skip past the queue of trucks
that had built up. As Jacana was not an option we amended our plan to stay
at Ishasha Camp instead (S0 37.154 E29 39.668). Blimey the place was busy,
probably 3 separate tour groups, and not our peaceful bush camp from the
previous night. The facilities were not much better, pit latrine and a cold
shower, but it was just fine. This is where our visit to the park hit a
downturn. That night I slept for only about 10 minutes, nothing to do with
the warthogs and Hippos snorting and snuffling in the camp. (Sue's comment -
loads of hippos were munching around the car and she got to watch them -
brave me, Matt was too knackered to look). The following morning I was
knackered and had no energy. I initially put it down to dehydration and we
relaxed for the day and I drank plenty of water. It was quiet in camp as
everyone else had packed up and left so we had a nice day despite my
ailment. Peace and quiet was briefly interrupted in the afternoon by a
thunderstorm, but thankfully come nightfall I had managed the odd doze here
and there and caught some good sleep overnight too.
Feeling somewhat better the following morning we packed up camp early and
went for a game drive. Plenty of Cob, Elephant, Buffalo, and some good new
bird spots, but not a sight of the alleged 'Tree Climbing Lions' that live
in the area. So instead of staying another night we hit the road just before
lunch to Kabale and Lake Bunyonyi. Mufasa's belly was getting a touch light
as we had not filled up since Kampala some 1200km ago, so a quick splash and
dash in Kihihi, and then the slow road thru the hills down to Kabale. All
was going so well and then we hit a snag. As usual we passed all sorts on
the road and most of the people wave and gesture as if they want you to stop
so they can hitch a lift of ask for 'gifts'. One chap was most insistent but
we just passed on by. About 10 minutes later we found out why, the road was
shut. A river had flooded the road and the main road we needed was only
about 2km past the river. We had seen no other road for miles and had
visions of having to drive most of the 100km back to where we had come from
before finding an alternative. Backtracking up the hill we this time stopped
at the chap who had tried to stop us previously. 'Why didn't you stop' he
asked 'I was going to tell you the road is closed!'. We tried to explain
that if we stopped for every frantically waving person we would have only
travelled about 100km in 4 months! Anyway, he kind of explained that there
was a 'new' road around the problem and we eventually found it. Road, or
narrow muddy track down the side of a hill? Things came to a halt briefly
when we met a pickup coming up the track. After some negotiation and
manoeuvring we managed to get around it and continued down the 'perilous'
descent. Things were not much better when we eventually reached the main
road as that was under repair.
Eventually we managed to reach Kabale and looked for bread and beer. The
muffins from the Hot Loaf Bakery were dry and more like biscuits, obviously
not a Ugandan staple, and the beer very expensive. So armed only with a loaf
of bread which we hoped would be more like bread than the muffins were
muffins we set off down to Lake Bunyonyi and the Bunyonyi Overland Camp (S1
16.314 E29 56.276). Again the night was not good and I was up several times,
now with diarrhoea, stomach ache, more than my usual quota of flatulence,
and what Sue described as 'eggy burps'. Managing to eventually make daylight
we consulted our 'what you might be dying from' medial book and diagnosed
Giardia, a form of bacterial diarrhoea. We did bring some antibiotics with
us, but not the specific one we needed. Thankfully after chatting with one
of the staff at the camp he offered to mercy dash to Kabale and try and buy
some for us, which he managed. Hopefully now I am on the mend, and we will
depart here over the weekend and head to Rwanda relatively fit and healthy
ready for the chance of spotting the Gorillas.
Our spot at the Bunyonyi camp is right on the waters edge and is very nice
indeed, and thankfully we have flushing toilets here and not a pit latrine,
what a nightmare that would have been!!!
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Addendum to the message from the birthday girl
For those interested parties I will fill in the missing information from the Birthday Girls blog entry, the coords of where we were.
Whilst in the Semliki GR we passed thru the Semliki Lodge (N0 54.525 E30 21524) on the way to the Chimp Researchers Camp (N0 53.589 E30 22.685). Eventually we made it to the Ntoroko Campsite (N01 03.437 E30 32.749) on the shore of Lake Albert. Normal service will be resumed soon!
Whilst in the Semliki GR we passed thru the Semliki Lodge (N0 54.525 E30 21524) on the way to the Chimp Researchers Camp (N0 53.589 E30 22.685). Eventually we made it to the Ntoroko Campsite (N01 03.437 E30 32.749) on the shore of Lake Albert. Normal service will be resumed soon!
Saturday, 13 September 2008
message from the birthday girl....
Thanks for all the birthday messages, I had a great day.
Saturday 13 Sep - Thought it about time I did a bit of an update. Currently
sitting on the southern shores of Lake Albert in the Semliki Valley game
reserve. It is boiling hot even though there is a cool breeze blowing in off
the lake. Although we can't complain as we wanted sunshine and warm weather
when we left Ethiopia and that's what we're getting. Don't think it'll last
too long as we'll probably be in the rain forests in the not too distant
future.
Can't remember when Matt wrote his last blog so if I repeat any of it...
ignore it. We spent 3 nights at Lake Nkuruba and didn't really do much at
all apart from chill out and watch the monkeys and birds. We had dinner
there one night and decided we should try the local Ugandan food, so we
ordered matoke with groundnut sauce and cassava with beef. Matoke is mashed
plantains (some sort of green banana) and when cooked it is slightly like
mashed potato but not as nice and as for the groundnut sauce - it looked
like cat puke, but we did eat it. Cassava is a bit like parsnip but drier
and once we'd mashed it up in the beef gravy it wasn't too bad. Luckily
enough we don't have to eat local food every night.
We came down to Semliki valley game reserve on Thursday and stopped off at
the Semliki lodge for a drink. Have to experience the life of luxury now and
again but I'll do without it if it means no going back to work. We had lunch
at the lodge courtesy of the US Coastguard. No they didn't pay. When we
arrived we asked if it was possible to have lunch and as they normally only
cater for the guests staying there Kristin (runs the lodge with her husband
Mark) said if there was food leftover she'd be able to sort something for
us. Luckily for us there was. It was much appreciated, and free!
We then went through to the chimp research camp to find out if we would be
able to do a chimp trek the following day. They said it would be fine and we
could join the researchers on their walk which would leave at about 6.00am.
We camped at the research camp and woke up next morning to thunder and
lightning and a bit of rain. We joined Justice (ranger with the medicine -
rifle), Charlotte and Phineas (both students from Cambridge) and had to walk
to the forest in the dark and luckily didn't encounter any lions, buffalo or
any other wild beast. We got to the forest as the chimps were de-nesting
(getting out of bed). We spent about 6 hours in the forest with them and
they had quite a lazy day, which meant we did too as we didn't have to
follow them for miles. The noise they make when they call is quite
disturbing as it sounds as if they are really aggressive. It was really
special to spend time with the chimps and to see what they get up to. A
birthday I won't forget in a hurry.
After that we headed to the campsite on the lakeshore via the lodge, had to
have a birthday drink didn't I! Matt then cooked a veggie curry with coconut
milk - it was delicious and then we had some of my birthday pressie,
Cadbury's chocolate. And don't forget the beer. Then it was into the tent to
wait for the hippo's to come out to graze but I didn't see them and Matt
sure didn't as he was fast asleep.
Today we decided it was time to do something completely different - ready
for this Oz - we tried fishing. Didn't catch anything although we had to be
really careful not to catch birds. Not what you think , the birds were
flying past when we were casting and it looked at times like they wanted to
eat our lures. Will try again tomorrow. Oh and Matt nearly caught a Pied
Kingfisher that was very interested in the lure in the water, needless to
say he reeled it in post haste!
Latest news on ablutions - decided that bush showers and bucket showers are
the best as they are outside and you don't have to go into any grotty dingy
damp rooms. As for loos, long drops are still gross especially when Matt
tells me he has seen bats flying in them. So when we get back to
civilization please don't worry if we go out into your garden for a pee or
shower!
Only got about 7 weeks left, how time flies.
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