Queen Elizabeth Park & the Kazinga Channel

Queen Elizabeth Park & the Kazinga Channel

Day 5: 2nd December 2018

Today's travel map

One thing you have to get used to at bush camps is the sound of the wildlife, we could hear the hippos etc, the wildlife sounds really close but we can’t tell how close. When we got up in the morning, we could also see the evidence of the elephants that had visited during the night.

I’m not sure I’m used to the getting up early for breakfast, but it is an adventure when someone has to be there to walk you to breakfast, just in case.

The morning game drive was fantastic, we got to watch a herd of elephants, including tiny babies, do what elephants do, eat, wander around and then eat some more. We came up empty on lions and leopards but we were pretty happy with the morning game drive.

 After the morning game drive, we headed back to the Bush Lodge Budget campsite for lunch. These guys put on really amazing food, every meal is between 3 to 4 courses and plated up like they do on TV. I’ll be going on a diet when I get back at this rate, Lisa is already considering enforcing the fat clause.

We headed off for our afternoon boat cruise on the Kazinga Channel, famous for the highest

concentration of Hippos in Africa, alongside other animals like Buffaloes, and huge crocodiles

basking on the shores, as well as 611 bird species. We were supposed to be on a 2pm cruise, but ended up going at 3pm, so we went to the information centre, which had interesting information about the park, the animals and conservation efforts. There were also some very old stuffed animals (very, very old), which were somewhat past their use-by date. We also went up to a café which overlooked the Kazinga channel and had a drink. From there we had an excellent overview of the channel, and could see a lot of elephants drinking and playing in the water. We could also see hippo, buffalo, and Andrew spotted a crocodile.

 Note the change in water after it has gone over the croc's back

 The boat has two decks, our guide Ronald advised us to sit on the left of the bottom deck for the best view, which turned out to be great advice. The boat wasn’t full, and most of the other passengers went upstairs. The cruise runs for two hours, and was really worthwhile. The large elephant herd that was playing on the water’s edge had moved off by the time we got there, but there were still plenty of buffalo there. As we cruised along we saw a lone bull elephant walking along, he kept ducking in and out of the bushes as he moved.

 Elephant chasing the Egyptian Geese

The path that animals made to get to the channel

When I was previously here I stayed at these lodges on the hill

There were plenty of hippos, and buffalo sitting in the edge of the water, and even one group with a rather large crocodile in amongst them. We saw a lot of birds, including gulls, pelicans, maribou stork, heron, various kingfishers and fish eagles.

We learnt that there were two separate species of buffalo the Cape Buffalo and the Forrest buffalo. the Cape buffalo is a darker brown whilst the Forrest buffalo is a light brown, the two species have been interbreeding so now they have a blended buffalo.

Further down the channel we came across a small bachelor herd of elephants. There were having a great time scratching themselves on a couple of trees and a tree stump, as well as doing some gentle trunk wrestling.

Right next to where we saw these elephants was a smallish fishing village. The village is inside the QE National Park, unfortunately this sometimes causes conflict with the wildlife. I'm lead to believe in March this year 12 lions were poisoned by the villagers. 

The village & some of the locals launching a fishing boat.

Making boats

 a couple of guys paddling out to fish

We also saw a bush buck in the open, and were able to see the spotted pattern on its sides.

Some birds cooling themselves in the afternoon sun.

Lisa got the photo of the day, a Fish Eagle on its perch and then in flight.

Extinct crater on the way back to the lodge

When we got back to camp I saw this on the back of a tourist vehicle, it sums it up perfectly

All in all it was a good cruise, and well worth doing. After that we went back to the lodge to relax before another wonderful dinner. The tables were set up in the open again, but a thunderstorm rolled in and required a quick rearrangement of the seating! 

Now a quick note on how to predict rainfall, if a goat climbs to a high point (say on top of a dirt mound where there is no food) then it’s going to rain. I told Lisa & Ronald it was going to rain but they didn’t listen to me, now they are believers.

After dinner we headed to our tent and were quickly joined by our escort, on the way I met the armed (with AK47) security guard, we had a chat about waking me up if he sees any elephants, hippos. Unfortunately I didn’t get the call, but there was a lot more animal noises compared to the night before.