KIDEPO TRIP

Sorry to bore you all with yet another safari blog, but our trip to Kidepo this week was just brilliant.  This particular national park is right up in the far north of Uganda on the South Sudanese border and is probably the least visited in the country.  This is partly because it is so remote and hard to get to, but also because it is only in the last few years that it has been safe to travel there because of the threat from the now vanquished Lord's Resistance Army (well, they have been driven into DRC if not actually defeated).  In fact it still remains on the US and UK 'do not travel' list, which frankly is daft - come on guys get up with the times.

At the moment Kidepo is in the middle of their wet season, which is not an ideal time to visit, but we had no choice and we felt we were seasoned enough travellers by now to cope with all that it could throw at us.  In fact we proved to be right and so with a fairly dry 'wet' and Lucy's 4x4 capabilities we had no real difficulties.  In fact the only time we almost got into to trouble was whilst having a coffee in down town Kampala yesterday after we got back!  But more of that later.

We had a reasonably straightforward trip up there, breaking the journey with an overnight stop in Gulu on the way. The only real trouble was on the road from Kitgum up to the national park when a truck went off one side of the road and a bus then tried to get past and went off the other side, causing a blockage for a couple of hours.  In the end they managed to release the truck fairly easily but the bus was still there when we left!

As I say, we had a fabulous time in Kidepo, probably the best so far, and managed to see quite a number of animals we haven't seen before including rock hyrax, striped hyena, ostrich, secretary bird, bustard, ground hornbill and oribi amongst others.  We also saw a lot more lions, giraffes and elephants very close up, having an amazing game walk where we were right amongst the giraffe.  Once again I think I will just let the photographs do the talking for me.  I have included a couple of short video clips and I apologise if your system doesn't let you view them, or they slow down the loading of the page. However, they were so good I couldn't resist!

Why do buffalo always seem to look cross?

These guys were just amazing - so beautiful!

We got closer to lions this trip than ever before - too close almost!

This chap was determined not to get out of our way without an argument!

These rock hyrax are actually most closely related to elephants apparently!

This is a look inside our home from home at Nga Moro lodge

Our early morning 'game walk' allowed us to get closer to the giraffe than ever before

The way the giraffe move is really quite extraordinary.  This was a youngster with her mother who was pregnant.

The vultures hadn't quite woken up when I took this photo

Zebra and Jackson's Hartebeest mix together for protection

Nothing like a good mud wallow to get rid of the ticks!

The view from our balcony across the park as our boots dried out from the walk!

Ronnie and Patrick our guide at the Kidepo sand river

An Abyssinian Roller at close quarters

A snoozing lion spotted on our way home one evening

Even Luke and John were in on the wildlife action this trip!

And finally ...

... on our return to Kampala after washing the car (which was very much required!) we went to one of our favourite coffee places - the Dancing Cup in Bugulobi.  Whilst we were there one of the heaviest tropical downpours that I have experienced hit us and within 20 minutes the place was awash.  Just outside the entrance it was particularly bad, with a couple of vehicles abandoned to the flood!

So I am about to set off for Shrivenham for a week now to attend the induction course at Cranfield University for my PhD and will then return for the last few weeks of term.  We have one more adventure planned before we leave Africa once and for all in July, and I am busy making plans for our circumnavigation of Lake Victoria, taking in Southern Uganda, Rwanda, Northern Tanzania and Kenya.  However, before then I am sure there will be more Kampala based events to report.

ARCHIE - IN MEMORIAM

This will be a short, but poignant blog.  I had intended it to be focused on my adopted feline friend Archie (named before I actually realised that she was a girl).  I took a series of photos of her last weekend (oops, I've just noticed that I should have posted them then as I am week behind) and was going to add to them during the week, presenting a light-hearted look at Archie's antics.  Sadly, the day after the photo shoot she failed to turn up for breakfast and I haven't seen her since. 

Whilst she has disappeared for the odd day or two before (and of course was absent for three days during the 'Charlie's Sock Cupboard Incident' as it became known at school) she has never been missing for this long.  The mean streets of Kampala is a tough environment for a small cat, especially one as trusting as Archie, so I fear she is no longer with us.  I am obviously very sad about this as she was very sweet and we had grown quite close, however, as I pointed out to Ronnie yesterday, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.  Now I have to say, I was left with the impression that whilst she sympathised with my loss, she felt that I was over dramatising it.  Well, I will leave it to all you true cat lovers out there to decide for yourselves.

So, below is a series of shots of Archie, well, just being Archie.  She rarely stayed still for more than a few seconds so a lot of them are blurred, but hopefully you will get an idea of what she was like ...

Always curious :-)

Very loving :-(

And finally ...

On a lighter note, there is a railway line that runs from Uganda to Kenya, which when it was built around a century ago was a marvellous feat of engineering.  However, like many other things in the country, in the seventies and eighties it was allowed to fall into disrepair and is now a sorry shadow of its former self.  It hasn't carried passengers for many years and even the freight traffic is very infrequent.  In fact it is so infrequent that, despite travelling over it almost every day I have only twice seen a train!  Most of the time is is a very busy pedestrian thoroughfare as it is straight and flat and hence good for walking on.  However, on Friday I actually spotted an enormous train that extended out of sight in both directions.  Admittedly it was only doing about 5 KPH, but it was there.  Although I was driving I managed to get my camera out and take a fleeting photo (this is Kampala so my curiously erratic driving was barely noticed).  Below is the result - not a great photo, but a rare one nonetheless: