After we spent a night at Lake Mburo, we travelled another few hours farther northwest to Queen Elizabeth National Park and spent two nights at the Kingfisher Lodge overlooking the Rift Valley.
We have visited this park numerous times, but always enjoy the new adventures we have each time. Rayleen was looking forward to seeing lions and elephants. It seemed that the large elephant herds had moved to another part of this vast park, and we saw only the occasional lone elephant this time.
The boat launch on the Kazinga Channel allowed us the usual great sightings of several kinds of birds, hippos (including an albino hippo) and crocodiles (including one that was incubating eggs on the shore).
We drove around on several tracks one afternoon hoping to see at least one elephant herd, but unfortunately saw little in 2 or 3 hours other than nasty flies with long, pointed ‘stinger noses’ that attacked us in the vehicle when we had the windows open. We were about to conclude that we just had a bad day for animals when we suddenly came upon a group of about six Cape Buffalo lying in the mud on each side of the small track we were driving on. They were literally right on either side of the track with maybe ten feet in between ….and we spotted a young one with its mother in the group. These are the most ornery, aggressive land animals and can do some very serious damage to vehicles (and people) with their powerfully strong necks and horns. It was a very narrow track in a bush area, hence no place to turn around and get out of the way. As a couple of the animals started getting up out of the mud and looking rather scary, I decided all we could do was to gun it and hope we got through before they could get their footing in the mud. So we went for it and managed to get through before they had time to come after us. No time for a photo as we were escaping! Here is one from the boat launch, though….rather grumpy looking creatures.
The last morning we took a last drive through the park where lions are often spotted. We had gone to that area the previous morning, but were not able to see any in the tall grass. This time, however, we had a fantastic sighting of a female lion near a thicket. As we watched her, a male lion also emerged….and then another female!
They were amazing to watch—so majestic and fearless. Rayleen saw her lions!
Another great safari in God’s amazing creation.
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