Uganda Part I

In February of this year I had a pretty quiet time as far as safaris go so I jumped at the opportunity to head up to Uganda with 3 of my cousins and another friend of theirs. Two of my cousins (Warren & Matt) are really interested in butterflies and have an impressive collection, whilst the third cousin (George) is really interested in plants and their medicinal properties. I knew there would be plenty of time for me to look at birds and anything else I fancied. We set off from Nakuru in Kenya early and arrived in Jinja on the Nile in time for lunch.


We set off through Kampala and a thunderstorm aiming to get to Fort Portal near the western border of Uganda. Just my luck: my turn in the back of the pick up just in time for the rain to start! We got to Fort Portal in time for a tough beef stew and ugali, then set off to look for a campsite Warren and Matt had used a few years before set on the edge of Lake Nkuruba; one of a series of crater lakes just to the south of Fort Portal. We spent rather a lot of time looking and never found the site they had used; instead we settled on another little community campsite that was very pleasant and very basic.


The next morning we set of for the Semliki Valley, stopping first in Semliki Game reserve on the southern edge of Lake Albert. Lovely little park, sadly a lot of the area we drove through had been burnt, but we still saw some good game and my first (of many) Uganda Kob. Also saw Abyssinian Ground Hornbill for the first time. Sadly it was very windy and hazy so the butterflies were not in abundance and the views, which everyone raves about, were obscured. After reaching lake Albert we decided the butterflies would be better in Semliki National Park and headed in that direction for the night.