Lake Mburo, Uganda – 27 July

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Lake Mburo, Uganda – 27 July

We woke at 5.00pm and away by 6.30am for our long drive to Lake Mburo National Park which is located in Kiruhura District in western Uganda. The park is situated about 30 kilometres by road, east of Mbarara, the largest city in the sub-region. This location is approximately 240 kilometres by road, west of Kampala, Uganda's capital and largest city.

The roads in Uganda are something to experience (or not!). Many of the road works we came across are being funded by the European Union. Progress is being made. We travelled through several towns and villages, stopping at Mabarabab to access an ATM.

We arrived at Lake Mburo at about 2.30 and did a game drive at 3.30pm after setting up camp and looking around at the bar and mini shop for souvenirs. The Park had very basic facilities which included squat toilets. The hot water in the shower was heated in a 44 gallon drum with a fire....but it worked and was a good freshen-up after a hot, dusty day. We went down by the lake and sat under a shady tree and read a book until the Game Drive started.

On the Game Drive we saw/learned that the park has a variety of animals such as zebras, impala, buffalo, and over three hundred bird species. At 260 square kilometres, the park is the smallest of Uganda’s Savannah national parks. In 2009, the Uganda Wildlife Authority, which manages the park announced plans to introduce balloon tourism in the park.

After the Game Drive we came back and had a sort-of cool beer (4000 Ugandan shillings) and watched the sunset over the Lake. We saw hippos in the foreground coming up for breathe in the Lake. It was beautiful. During the night they would come out of the water and grazed around our camp site so we were advised not to go too far away from our tents during the night. During the night we heard them grunting to each other. I had a good sleep as I put some ear plugs in!! Tom’s cough is reducing but it is still waking him a few times during the night.

We woke up at 5.00am again and after breakfast (porridge, bacon, baked beans, toast and coffee), listening to the hippos during breakfast, we left Lake Mburo at 6.15am for an early morning Game Drive on our way to Jinja, our next stop.

After 45 minutes of rough road, we came across this beautiful new road – Yahoo!!!! We had a long drive ahead – again many villages seen as well as subsistence farming.

We arrived at Jinja at 4.30pm and it was raining.

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