Murchison Falls

Saturday 26th May 2007 Murchison Falls Camp
This morning we got up early and caught a ferry across the Nile (quick and efficient!!!) and drove around the reserve on the north side of the river. Hundreds of Kobs ( buck the size of a rietbuck, very similar to impala) (Nev says that’s where kob-webs come from!), thousands of Oribi slightly different to ours, elephants, and buffalo. There were lots of different interesting birds and some tsetse fly too, he he he.
Then we drove back Murchison Falls and saw them from the top. Wow!! They were spectacular. The whole of the massive Nile River is funneled through a chasm 7m wide and 45 m deep in a thunderous turbulent white frightening roar of rushing water. Nothing prepared us for the feeling, even having seen it and the spray from the bottom. We are sleeping tonight right near the top of the falls.
Dave has been a bit off colour, but otherwise everyone is fine. We are all getting along fine.

Friday 25th May 2007 Chili Pepper
Last night I woke up with the sound of the regular movement of a vehicle’s springs……… but as I peered out of the tent in the moonlight to check the noise I couldn’t see anyone’s vehicle moving. Then a huge hippo and its baby came around the corner of a rondavel and chomped its way up to, around and past our landy going chomp chomp chomp chomp at the short grass without a break, not ever even picking up its head. It gently bumped our table on its way past. The next morning the warthogs were skoffeling around the campsite and had to be chased off when they wanted to sit on our chairs. I didn’t whether I was meant to serve them breakfast or not as they looked very expectant.
We went bird watching in the morning, and identified them using my new book bought in Kampala called Birds of East Africa. Birds here are slightly different and some new ones. In the afternoon we took a boat cruise up the Victoria Nile towards the actual falls. There were lots of animals and birds on the shore and in the water, including massive crocs waiting in an eddy below the falls awaiting easy prey of fish stunned or killed by the force of the water. The falls were quite impressive from the distance we saw them.


Thursday 24th May 2007 Chilli Pepper Camp
We traveled to Murchison Falls on yet another rather potholed, but this time a bit better road and arrived at the Chili Pepper campsite near the bank of the Nile River I Murchison Falls National Park. Uneventful day except we had lunch at Masindi Hotel, famous for Ernest Hemmingway’s recouperation after is second, bad aircraft crash in three days while filming in the area. The bar there is named Hemmingways Bar. (Three more punctures on the way, one each - not us so far. Maybe we should mention at this point that we are the only ones with tubeless tyres and wrap-around tread Coopers STT. The punctures lately have been caused by hitting potholes and pinching the tube against the rim.)
We met up with other SA campers whom we had seen on two previous occasions in Kenya. They farmers from Tarkastad in the Eastern Cape and knw the Haupts from Craig Ewan. They are driving through East Africa with two Isuzu bakkies and trailers. When Nev asked what they thought of the roads they pointed to the trailer which they had broken clean in half and had welded up with angle iron, a real make-do job, heavily reinforced and now weighs twice as much, but hopefully won’t break again. They say it is impossible to dodge potholes with trailer. Nev can imagine the trailers bouncing half a meter off the ground behind the bakkies.