Epic East African Adventure 2018: Bwindi Forest to Queen Elizabeth National Park

Bwindi Forest to Queen Elizabeth National Park

Day 4: 1st December 2018

Up early again, as we had a long days drive on to Queen Elizabeth National Park, below is the actual trip map and the altitude change.

The entrance to our lodge, I'm going to miss this place

Some of the views leaving Bwindi

After a long drive back down the hills we entered QE National Park at the Ishasha entrance which is in the very south of the park. We had been told that this area of the park is famous for its tree climbing lions, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any. From what we’ve been told the tree of choice is the Fig tree.

From there it was just a drive along an “average” bumpy road complete with the African massage for about 80Km’s which takes about 2 hours. This part of the Park is very close to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border so there are a lot of soldiers around with the weapon of choice in Africa, the AK47.

I did get to see a big monitor lizard running along side the road, we also saw elephants along the main dirt road and this cute little bird. (i think i'm becoming a bird guy)

I have no idea what type of bird it is but I like him

can you spot the elephant?

he was literally by the side of the road

We got to our accommodation at about 3:30pm, the Bush Lodge budget tented camp located just outside Queen Elizabeth NP. Its right on the Kazinga Channel and out tent is about 10 meters from the water and yes we can hear the hippos.

We were given a briefing about the camp and our safety, it went a little like this.

1: At night always carry your torch, give way to elephants and hippos, there is an armed guard at all times in the camp, (just in case)

2: you will be escorted to your tent after dinner and escorted back in the morning.

3: shared toilets, don’t go in the middle of the night unless you absolutely have to, see rule # 1.

At about 4:30pm we headed off for our evening game drive, we crossed the Kazinga Channel via the bridge that was donate by QE, which was the reason she now has a National Park named after.

Ronald hired Daniel who is a Ranger / Guide, which was an awesome idea. Daniel gave us a bit of history and told us about who the Rhinos became extinct at QE NP (trophy hunters). The importance of the different animals to the park things like the Elephants, for clearing land and preventing the Savannah from becoming a woodlands and the Rhinos would eat the short grass helping to keep the fire risk down.

On a side note if you want to see how important the biodiversity of a park is watch a doco on the reintroduction of Wolves into Yellowstone National Park. (its on youtube)

It’s interesting to me to listen to how people describe things as a general rule it gives me an insight into who they are and how they think. For example, the older male buffalo's get kicked out of the herd once they can’t keep up or are no longer able to help protect the herd.

Most people we have met have referred to these older males as bachelor boys, dagger boys, losers, none of which are terribly nice descriptions. However Daniel and pretty much every Ugandan has described the old males as retired generals, because they have served their time protecting the herd, they have contributed to the future of the herd and now their job is done they can retire to a quite life. It seems to me that they look at them with a huge amount of respect.

We saw a long tailed mongoose not able to get a photo of him because he was in one hell of a hurry.

We got to see lots of elephants up close and personal.

Prepare yourself, cuteness over load coming up

Then we got to see possibly one of the funniest things you could imagine. There was a patch of mud with 14 hippos wallowing in it, they are some crazy critters. One hippo literally rolled onto it’s back and stuck it’s feet in the air, something that I would have never expected or have ever seen before.