Tuesday August 10, 2010 – Game driving in Murchison Falls

Tuesday August 10, 2010 – Game driving in Murchison Falls


We were up and out early this morning – and at the ferry dock by 6:30 AM to catch the first ferry of the day at 7AM. I messed up buying a ticket in advance so as we left it became clear that I didn’t have one – “I will know you on the way back” was the driver’s comment – nice to be in a place where the default seems to be honesty. The ferry is more of a motorized flat barge which they pull up to, or ram up on, the shore, and then the cars bump their way onto the deck. It only takes about 15 minutes to cross at a very slow pace. On the other side are a troop of baboons waiting to check out the arriving tourists and the Uganda Wildlife Authority guides that one can hire for a game drive. When I asked for a guide I was introduced to one as follows “this one is well borne and he will be your guide”. Took a minute to figure out that the guy’s name was Welborn, and there had not been a comment on his pedigree. So Welborn cleaned off our windows for better viewing and then loaded himself and his rifle into the back seat and off we went for a game drive. The majority of game is in the delta area, where the Victoria Nile meets Lake Albert and the Albert Nile. A good 45 min drive from the ferry. The scenery was lovely – rolling hills, grasses, borassa palms. We spent several hours slowly driving around and stopping here and there to take photos, returning just in time for the 12:00 return ferry. We saw lots and lots of Rothschild’s giraffe – there is a huge population, and many Uganda kob and oribi. Add in big herds of buffalo, some lovely waterbuck, warthog, and bushbuck. Surprisingly, zebra have never been here. Along the river’s edge we saw small groups of elephant drinking and playing trunk wrestling games in the shallows, and hippos lazing about on the shores. The bird life was also good – we saw two species of bustards, carmine bee-eaters, two Marshall eagles, and lots of plovers as well as scads of small woodland birds. Welborn really wanted to find us lions and tried hard, but alas there were no lions to be found by him or any of the guides. Hopefully lions will come another day.
Hot and tired we retired back to Red Chili for lunch, some repacking, and a serious couple of batches of laundry. Turns out the warthogs are a laundry hazard- at one point I went back to the campsite to get something out of the car and a troop of wart hogs was approaching our laundry with intense interest. One actually went as far as to take a t-shirt in its mouth before getting spooked by my shouting and the line waving when the shirt was grabbed. That seemed enough to turn them round and they headed off into the bush in search of other activities. Like napping by the bar restaurant. There are two resident families that seem to take turns sleeping under a palm tree just below the restaurant platform, and occasionally venturing up onto it and wending their way between the tables until someone chases them off. I made the mistake of putting my arm down behind my chair at one point, encountering a warthog who was at least as surprised as I was and made significant noise about it.
And other than a walk down to the park entrance to check out the very substandard gift shop, we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at birds, reading, chatting to other travelers, and generally puttering about.