The Great Ugandan Wildlife Road Trip

In the morning, your guide will meet you either at your hotel or at Entebbe International Airport.  Together, you will then depart by road for your first wildlife destination: Kibale National Park.  The 5-hour journey transports us through a gorgeously lush landscape, set against the legendary ‘Mountains of the Moon’, aka the Rwenzori Mountains.  En route, we’ll stop for lunch before continuing to your lodge.  After checking in, you have the rest of the day at leisure, including a sumptuous dinner before retiring to bed.  A big day awaits!

Kibale National Park extends over 766 square kilometres (296 sq mi) in size, and ranges between 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) and 1,600 metres (5,200 ft) in altitude.  The park was established in 1993 specifically to preserve the rainforest and its treasured inhabitants.  Chief amongst these are its various primates, notably wild chimpanzees. The climate in Kibale is moist and temperate throughout the year.  Daytime temperatures average 26°C/79°F, dropping to a cool 16°C/61°F overnight.  Rainfall is common throughout the year, peaking in April and from September to November.  The driest, and therefore best times to visit are during January/February and June/July.  Regardless of when you visit, water-resistant clothing and footwear are recommended.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Kibale Forest National Park
• Lunch and dinner, not breakfast
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

Get an early start and fuel up with breakfast.  This morning, we’ll set off for Kibale at 07h00 to meet your chimpanzee trek guides at the park office.  After a short briefing, you’ll be led deep into the rainforest in search of free-roaming chimpanzees.  The park is home to several habituated troops, and it may take some time to find them in the dense vegetation.  Please note that appropriate clothing and footwear, as well as a reasonable degree of fitness, are essential.

Roughly 1500 chimps inhabit the Kibale Forest.  An endangered species, chimp numbers plummeted due to poaching, habitat loss and conflict with humans.  As such, to minimise impact, your time with the troop is limited to one precious hour.  Chimps are social primates, living in large groups that may number as many as 150 individuals.  Troops are led by an alpha male.  However, within the group, a fascinating array of sub-hierarchies exists to maintain social cohesion. This makes for fascinating observations of their complex social lives and behaviour.

After the trek, you will return to the lodge for lunch.  Then, later in the afternoon, you can join an interesting walk in the Bigodi Swamps.  Dinner and bed follow.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Kibale National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

Rise and shine to the dawn chorus of the rainforest before enjoying a leisurely breakfast.  After checking out, we’ll be heading due south to Uganda’s most popular wildlife destination: Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Over the course of the 3-4 hour journey, sit back and enjoy the scenery, including mysterious crater lakes, tea plantations and rural villages.  On arrival, you’ll be shown to your accommodation and offered lunch.  Then, take a short siesta before the afternoon game drive.

Spanning an area of 1,978 square kilometres (764 sq mi), including Lake George and the eastern shores of Lake Edward, Queen Elizabeth National Park is as big as it is diverse.  The landscape is a patchwork of savannah grasslands, rainforests, swamps and deep volcanic crater lakes.  Within this varied terrain, four members of the Big 5 – lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo (with rhino absent) – rub shoulders with healthy populations of general game.  Common species include Uganda kob, defassa waterbuck, bushbuck and topi.  With over 600 species of birds found, little wonder this park is world-renowned amongst the birding fraternity.  Arguably the most sought-after species is the shoebill stork, which can be found in the swampy areas of the park.

Return to your lodge for dinner and bed.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Kibale National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

After breakfast and before the temperature rises, you’ll head out on a 4-hour morning game drive across Queen Elizabeth National Park’s Kasenyi Plains.  These plains sweep up from the shores of Lake George, attracting large herds to graze and slake their thirst.  The abundance of prey species makes this a good place to look for leopards.  Aside from the various animals spotted, your guide will also teach you about the traditional uses of various plants, point out various animal tracks and help you identify some of the bird species on the lakeshore.  You’ll also spot the park’s uniquely red-tinged buffalo, resulting from crossbreeding with forest buffalo.

After the game drive, you’ll return to your lodge for lunch and a little downtime before the afternoon activity.  Connecting Lakes George and Edward is the Kazinga Channel, the location of your afternoon boat cruise.  While you relax with a drink in hand, you’ll float amongst the highest density of hippos on the planet.  Sharing the waters are dozens of large crocodiles, while on the banks, various species of wildlife and waterbirds vie for your attention.

After the boat trip, you’ll return to your lodge to enjoy another mouthwatering meal before retiring for the evening.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Queen Elizabeth National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

After breakfast, you’ll head out on a morning game drive in the Ishasha Sector. The area is particularly well known as the place where lions sleep in trees.  It’s said they do this to escape irritating insects and heat at ground level.  When they’re not in the trees, you may be lucky enough to find them hunting Uganda kob in the scenic woodlands.  

You’ll return to camp for lunch before being transferred to the next destination: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.  Arriving in the early evening, dinner and a comfortable bed await.

At just 321 km2 (124 sq mi), Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is relatively small.  However, it is of vital importance in the Ugandan conservation effort.  Established in 1991, the park was set aside to conserve the lowland and montane forest habitats of mountain gorillas.  As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park is home to about 450 of these endangered great apes.  This population represents roughly 40% of the world’s remaining wild mountain gorillas.  To protect this fragile environment, the park is only accessible on foot.  Within its confines, researchers have documented 120 mammal species, 350 birds and a myriad of insects, reptiles, amphibians and flora.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

After an early breakfast, you will be transferred to the park headquarters, where the gorilla guides will brief you on the protocols for your gorilla encounter.  As was the case for your chimpanzee trek, you are advised to wear the appropriate clothing and hiking boots are essential for navigating wet, uneven terrain.  Devoted to gorilla conservation, your guides have received specialised training and boast a profound understanding of the apes and the forest they call home.

As the gorillas roam freely, you’ll appreciate the skills required in tracking them down.  This can take a few minutes or several hours.  Once located, regulations permit groups to spend no more than one hour with the troop, ensuring disturbances are kept to a minimum.

Gorillas became endangered largely due to a variety of human-induced causes.  Primary among these is habitat loss, where swathes of jungle were lost to agriculture.  Additionally, they are persecuted by poachers and are highly susceptible to human-borne diseases.  As few as one thousand gorillas are thought to live in isolated pockets of land across Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Living in groups of up to 30 individuals, each troop is ruled by a ‘silverback’ dominant male.  Assisting him in protecting his harem of females are several sentry males.  While young males and females emigrate to join or form new troops, resident females typically remain bonded to their ‘silverback’ for life.

After the trek, you will return to camp where you can enjoy some leisure time before dinner and bed.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

After breakfast and checkout, we set off for the final wildlife destination of the tour: Lake Mburo National Park.  The scenic drive should take in the region of 5.5 hours.  On arrival, lunch will be served, and you can enjoy some downtime before the afternoon activity.  In this case, there’s no need for heavy footwear or fitness, as you’ll be taking a leisurely boat cruise on Lake Mburo.  In Nature, water means life, and Lake Mburo is no exception.  Hundreds of hippos and crocodiles inhabit the depths, while the shores are alive with a huge variety of birds.  Wildlife, such as buffalo, and various antelope species are always seen along its shores.  

After the boat cruise, you can enjoy your final meal under the African sky before retiring to bed.

Lake Mburo National Park covers an area of 260 km² (100 sq mi).  Within this relatively small area, the habitats include open grasslands, acacia woodlands, rocky outcrops, forested gorges and several swamps.  These habitats support a pleasing diversity of both mammal and bird species.  The climate is mild, with temperatures averaging 26°C/79°F by day, dipping to around 16°C/61°F overnight.  The driest weather and best game viewing are over June/July, while January/February also have relatively little rainfall.  Two distinct wet seasons occur, from March to May and September to December.

• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Overnight stay inside Lake Mburo National Park
• Breakfast, picnic lunch, and dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra

On your final morning, you’ll take a guided nature walk after breakfast.  In the company of an experienced guide, you’ll get to appreciate the wilds from ground level. You might use the occasion to try to check some additional species off your list, such as Rothschild’s giraffe, impala, defassa waterbuck, eland, topi, duiker, oribi, bohor reedbuck, plains zebra, warthog, olive baboon, vervet monkey and klipspringer.  Lake Mburo’s shores and surrounding landscape are a haven for a variety of birds, with over 300 species known to frequent the area.

On leaving the park, you’ll head northeast, stopping at the equator to take some selfies and pick up a few last-minute keepsakes of your trip. Continuing with the trip, we will drop you at your preferred destination, whether at your hotel or Entebbe International Airport.  We anticipate getting there in the early evening, at which point it will be time for us to say our goodbyes. 

Hemingway once said, “If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa.”  We hope, after your various experiences with us, you, too, have seen magic in Africa.  And, remember, if you’d like to experience more of it, Africa Flash McTours would love to host you.

• No accommodation, this is the final day
• Breakfast and lunch, no dinner
• Drinking water, other drinks are extra