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another great trip up to murchison falls national park. plenty of photos and comments over at philsgood photo a day. highlights included lions, birds, breakdowns and a new place to stay.

i drove up on friday and stayed at red chili which is just as good as when we first were there a year and a half ago. plenty of camping space, cold drinks and really good, cheap food. and the restaurant is a great place to hang out. i took the 7am saturday ferry across and was off for my first by-myself game drive. kinda fun. don’t have to worry that the others are getting bored spending too much time looking at the things that i want to see. but i also don’t want to see something new and cool because paige isn’t there to share it. so there’s that. the big find of the morning was a big male lion resting in the shade. i stopped for a while to have snacks and after a while he got up to sniff and look at me so i was able to get some decent photos.

i picked paige in pakwach at 2pm so we had plenty of time in the afternoon for driving around. the big lion was gone but we saw both my new birds from last week, so that was good. by ourselves they still count, but it’s not as fun if we don’t both see new species. excitement included a melted battery cable clamp and its subsequent repair, as detailed at my photo blog.

a new thing for both of us was camping in the middle of the park at the nile delta. the only thing that makes it a camp site is that they allow you to camp there.  you have to be self-contained as far as cooking and stuff. the location is beautiful, and remote. it’s the furthest point from the park hq and the ferry crossing. being out there sure magnifies the night sounds - we’re used to camping around african wildlife, but this is different from the other sites in national parks in that you’re a long way from help. the big advantage of camping there is that you can begin your game drive as early as you want, and you are right in the the thick of the best spots for seeing stuff. we were in the car at 6:15 and had nearly an hour of beautiful light and great viewing before the first ferry was even across. and they still have 30km to drive to get to us. nice. a new animal was some kind of fox or coyote. we didn’t even know they existed here. very cool.

of course, the goal was the lion cubs and we succeeded in a big way. again, photos and more over at PPAD. it was a great example of why you want to camp on the north side. we’d already been looking for them for over an hour and a half when we found the nine cubs + two moms at 8am. we got them all to ourselves for 30 minutes before the next vehicle showed up. and by that point they were finishing up playtime and heading for naptime in the shade. never would have gotten that if we’d been on the other side of the river. with the 7am ferry and the 30km+ drive to the regular spots, you have to get lucky and find the lions first thing to catch them before they head for shade.

we stayed at the newly-renovated kanyiyo pabidi in budongo forest on our last night. lotsa recent money from usaid and the jane goodall institute has turned this in to a sweet spot. new cabins, great food, and an hour+ closer to kampala than red chili. so it’s a good place to go either coming or going to shorten the final drive from or to kampala. we’d been there twice before for birding walks but in the middle of the day. staying there meant we could get out in to the forest first thing when the birds were active. it was our third time with bird guide joshua and he found us eight new birds. and we had a chocolate-backed kingfisher calling all around us but never were able to see it. we’re up to 300 african birds now.

probably our last trip before the kiddo, and though it was only two days, we got a lot in.