Road Trip 2 - Derm visits Uganda

After a quick turn around in Kampala to pick Derm up from the airport and show him some of the local sights we're off again, this time to the South-west.

First stop Lake Mburo National Park, Uganda's zebra capital. Mburo is the closest NP to Kampala and was home to plenty of wildlife to keep us amused – we saw Sea Eagles, Hippos, Warthogs, Zebras, Buffaloes and enough antelope to last a lifetime.

Then an all day drive to get to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park for the Gorillas through some great scenery but bad roads. See elsewhere for the Gorilla photos but we also did a mountain trek through the rainforest where we were able to see into Congo and Rwanda in the distance.

Then to Ishasha in Queen Elizabeth National Park for the famous tree climbing lions that hang around in fig trees. Or in our case the famous fig trees where the lions normally hang out as they were nowhere to be seen.

Our disappointment not to see the lions soon faded when we came across a leopard on the way to the park headquarters at Mweya. Seeing Leopards is rare especially at 3 in the afternoon so we were suitably chuffed as we set-up camp on the peninsula. No other campers in sight but no worries we thought, all the more space for us. That night at 9 a hippo came wandering through, a young bull elephant about 1am and we could hear a lion nearby about 5am. No wonder no-one else was camping here!

The next morning we took a nature walk round the peninsula and in the afternoon boarded the launch boat for the famous Kazinga channel cruise. Both were awesome but the boat trip was like taking a ride in a zoo as there were so many animals – Crocs, Elephants, Buffaloes, Hippos, Antelope, Kingfishers, Cranes, Storks, Pelicans – all lining up on the banks ready for their photo. A great way to spend the afternoon.

The next night was a bit more peaceful in the campsite in terms of wildlife as we lit 4 fires to keep the big boys away! We headed to a Kyambura gorge to trek for chimpanzees and after 4 hours we found them. They didn't stick around for long but long enough for us all to get a good look. There we also saw some black and white colobus monkeys which the chimps hunt when they fancy some meat!

After a another unsuccessful game drive to find some lions we headed up to Fort Portal for our final stop to see Thea and check out some crater lakes. We dropped Derm back at the airport the following day, probably glad to be going home for a rest, said goodbye to our driver Eddie and started preparing for our next trip – Rwanda awaits....