Over the Christmas break, we headed off to the two nearest game parks – Lake Mburo and Queen Elizabeth. It was another wonderful chance to enjoy the beauty of Uganda and experience the wildlife very ‘close up’. Queen Elizabeth National Park is known for its abundance of elephants and this time we were literally surrounded by groups of them as we travelled through the park. They seemed very hungry and were too engrossed in eating trees and grass to really bother about us so we did not have any dangerous encounters.
We saw many baby animals on this trip, including this little elephant that walked in his mother’s shadow.
We also thoroughly enjoyed the boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel at Queen Elizabeth…
We particularly got a kick out of this egret ‘surfing’ on the back of a hippo!
The cape buffalos and forest buffalos were out in full force, and the small ones were staying close to the herd along the water, as they are often prey for the crocodiles.
We see monitor lizards quite frequently now in the parks, and as we were listening to the introductory instructions before the boat left shore, Karl spotted a large monitor lizard in the reeds and we watched it catch a huge fish for its lunch. Then at another point on the ride our keen eyed guide spotted another lizard sunning itself on a tree limb overhanding the water.
With all the rains we have had in the past few weeks, we had a challenge trying to get to our accommodations in Lake Mburo. We were advised at the gate to drive on the grass rather than along the tracks which had been chewed up badly by other vehicles that were stuck in the mud. At one point, Karl and Ken and one of the staff members from the lodge (who came out looking for vehicles trying to reach the place) took 45 minutes of tromping through the muddy grass before deciding on the best way to navigate around a huge muddy area. The zebras just ignored them and kept on feeding.
Thankfully, we made it through with some expert driving by Karl and Ken! A great time all in all!
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