Easter at Lake Mburo

We spent Easter weekend in Lake Mburo National Park. It is a lovely park, the only one with a complete lake within its boundaries. The tents had en-suite shower etc. and when we wanted a shower Apollo came with a jerry can of hot water which he tipped into a bucket and hoisted it above the tent! There was a open thatched dining/sitting area where they served three meals a day not to mention the odd beer or glass of wine!

We went on a number of game drives and although the park does not have any lion or elephant we saw many different antelope.

These are Topi.

The park also has Impala. Other places we have visited have Uganda Kob but in this park they have impala (Kampala is named after them).

Here is a picture of my favourites,

Waterbuck.

We also saw lots of warthogs, zebra, bushbuck and hippos in the lake. The weather was very un-ugandan! It was so cold and windy on the Saturday evening that the boat trip to look for crocodiles was cut very short. The lake was so choppy the people in the front of the boat were soaked! Then on Sunday we had booked a guided walk in the bush but it rained all day!! We had to go in the car!

These dung beetles were amazing! Two lovely metallic green beetles about the size of the end of your thumb co-operating to roll this ball of dung! Well I thought it was pretty clever, anyway!!

It was a lovely weekend.

One year on!

We have been here now for a year, I cannot believe how quickly time is passing!! Here are some photos of our field trip to Budongo Forest to one of UCUs projects.

A trading centre where we stopped to buy provisions to take to the research camp. The butchers where we bought meat!
The banda at the camp - in the forest and below the 'facilities' a bit of a trek in the night!!!

Budongo Forest is in the north west of the country not far from Lake Albert. They are researching how to stop the animals eating the village crops and so stop the villagers killing the Chimpanzees and other monkey species (black and white colobus, Vervet, Blue and Red-tailed) all of which we saw at close quarters.

The research camp is in an old, abandoned logging station. At least they have stopped felling trees there. Much of the forest has already been destroyed. We stayed for the weekend and I was able to track chimps with the researchers while Rob visited the test sites for growing crops the animals do not like. They plant tea and chillies, which they do not like, around the maize and banana crops to dissuade the animals from eating them.

Tracking the chimps was amazing.

The only problem was that I was so
excited being so close my photos were pretty terrible! The female kept looking back...to check we were still keeping up??!!