Across Kenya and Uganda we visited three National Parks, below is a brief overview and some pictures!
Lake Nakuru National Park
First stop leaving Nairobi was Lake Nakuru National Park, we did a game drive into the park and set up camp in the pouring rain (great first night to learn how to put up tents). The following morning we packed up our tents and did a game drive on the way out of the park. This was my first game drive so every animal we saw I was super excited about including the more common animals (zebra, water buffalo, warthogs, impala etc)! I wonder if that will still be the case by the time I get to Cape Town in two months (probably).
Baboon that was watching us eat at our lunch stop. Our guide told us that these baboons aren’t scared of white people, because traditionally rangers have dark skin so they are only scared of them! I didn’t believe them but sure enough they weren’t phased by anyone white that tried to chase them away.
Rhino! We saw six rhino plus a baby!
Apparently this tree releases a poison ten minutes after they start eating it, so they move on before the poison effects them.
Kalinzu Forest National Park
We camped overnight at Kalinzu Forest and the following morning we did a 5.5km into the forest to spot Chimpanzees! After an hour and a half we still hadn’t had any success, our guide contacted one of the other groups and they were with a Chimp so we raced through the forest to find the other group. We were lucky to see a male Chimp and about 30 minutes later we saw a mother and baby!
Taking photos of them was easier said than done because they were way up in the canopy in the shade with the bright sky behind them. I got a couple of semi decent photos which you can see below!
We stayed on path for first part of walk, but when we went to catch up with other groups we went through the thick forest which was fun!
Queen Elizabeth National Park
We spent two nights in Queen Elizabeth National Park, first afternoon we did a small game drive on the way to camp saw lots of hippos in the water! Following morning we went for a longer game drive and that afternoon we did a river cruise where we were able to see lots of animals up close. The following day as we were leaving the campsite we were incredibly lucky to see a leopard! It was sitting about 3-4m from the truck just on the side of the road and posing nicely! We spent about 20 minutes taking photos of it but we had to move on quickly because it seemed to be getting a bit agitated from someone using flash on their camera – stupid (I don’t want a leopard to eat me thanks). We left the park on a high! Our guide told us that she had not seen a leopard in this park in 5 years!
Ankole Cow – they are endemic to Uganda
Spotty goat near one of the villages!
Mama elephant, only couple metres from our truck checking us out
Pied kingfisher – there were hundreds of them flying around when we did the river cruise
Nile crocodile, duck and water buffalo!
THE LEOPARD!!!
Crouching down and watching us! (RUN AWAY)
We saw all these animals and more in the first week of my holiday! Only 8 more weeks of watching these beautiful animals every other day! I get excited when I see a cow or a cat on the side of the road so I’m sure you can imagine my level of happiness every day when I see these unique animals!
