Murchison falls national park

Located 300KMs away from Kampala, Murchison falls national park is the largest in Uganda. It is home to four of the big five including: Buffalo, Elephant,Lion and Leopard.

We set off from Kampala and decided to drive down to Masindi town which is about two and half hours drive.  There isn't much to see along the road except for the scattered road side markets which sell farm products expensively. I would recomend that you pick up whatever you need on your trip from Kampala before you set off. I have a sweet tooth so biscuits and chocolates along with mineral water made the trip bearable. At the turn off from the Gulu highway to Masindi town is some roasted food including chicken, cassava, maize and I don't remember what the rest was. You could suffer a mild tummy upset especially if you do eat the meat :) not that scary, so nothing to prevent you from venturing out really .

Even though you can make the trip directly to the park, we spent the night in Masindi town before proceeding to the national park the next morning. If you choose to spend the night in Masindi town, Kopling hotel is the place to be. They have these beautiful cottages for about $50, well it wasnot peak season when we went. Notice I said the cottages in particular, I cannot say the same for the rooms!  The breakfast was fair for an upcountry hotel.

The national park is two hours away from Masindi town. It is divided into two by the victoria nile. The gorgeous Paraa safari lodge is located across the victoria nile and there is a ferry that crosses every top of the hour starting 9 oçlock I think it was. The service is exquisite and lately, the Marasa group of hotels is giving Ugandans (sorry people) an offer of $100 per head, full board over the weekend. You know you can always go with a Ugandan partner and still benefit from this offer- that is simply how nice we are :)

Above is the swimming pool for residents at paraa safari lodge.

Back to the national park adventure. We took a boat ride to the bottom of the murchison falls.This is one of the many activities that you can do while at the park. Along the river banks there is lots of animals to see. The hippos enjoying their swim and splashing water, the crocodiles, lots of birds- there are 450 species of birds! You can tell am not really in for birds ......but well for bird watchers, something to look forward to.

We also took an evening game drive and apart from the big four, there is lots of girraffes, anteloppes, Ugandakobs,the hartebeest and oribi. On this trip we even saw a lion and a hyena as well! You know how rare lions are. This particular male lion was apparently sick as we tracked him down from his "home"( thanks to our zealous tour guide-Rose) and noticed a slight limp to his walk.
My favourite on this game drive though (and almost always) were the  giraffes all so tall and graceful.

You could also take a trip to the top of the murchison falls which we didnot do. At the end of two days in the park we were thoroughly exhausted and refreshed.

Plan to visit this great national park before this year runs out! Happy New Year!