Travel Summary: 3h 26m boating 34 km, 8h 17m driving 159 km
We left Gulu around 11 AM, following our meeting at the Capable office, and headed West to Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Upon arriving, we drove through the park slowly enjoying the game. Upon reaching the Victoria Nile, we registered and boarded a boat. Our course headed upriver on the Nile (South) to see Murchison Falls. While you can’t go all the way up to the falls, the view is nonetheless, quite spectacular.
While the falls were cool, what really made the boat ride spectacular was all the animals we saw along the way (plus several from our drive).
Of course, we also spent some time bird watching.
It was dark by the time we were back in the car , so we headed directly for our camp on the Victoria Nile River Delta (see the end of our tack on the map above), picking up a park ranger/guard on the way. Here, we pitched tents along the river for the night. The plan was to cook dinner but we couldn’t get the Whisperlite stove started so we settled for a third meal of white bread and peanut butter (and the same in the morning).
Before burrowing into tents for the night we took a short walk around – not too far from camp mind you, as we know firsthand there really are hippos, elephants, giraffes, buffalos, etc. wandering around. I put on mosquito repellent, planning to sleep under the stars. Unfortunatley, just as we walked back into camp the rain started and transitioned into a thunderstorm with lightening to boost. While awesome to see, I chose the tent after all – since there weren’t any stars to be seen. It poured down much of the night but ceased by the time we awoke.