Camping in Kidepo
A spectacular sunrise kicked off our day in Kidepo Valley National Park. The panoramic view from our campsite made it all the better, what a great welcome back to the bush. After watching the sunrise we made our first explorations. The roads were rough and I spent most of my time keeping us out of the ditch, putting the game spotting onus on the copilot. We had no particularly outstanding sightings the first day, but what impressed in Kidepo was the wide open vistas. We were able see a huge part of the valley from almost every road. Also the sheer volume of plains wildlife was remarkable.
Antelopes were numerous in both quantity and species. Jackson’s hartebeest, oribi, waterbuck and a tremendous amount of Ugandan kob, a new species to us. I thought they looked like a more handsome version of a puku. We also saw a couple of the darker white eared kob, who are assumed to be strays from their brethren in South Sudan. Someday I’d love to see the kob migration in South Sudan but I think we’ll wait for the security situation to improve there first.
The next two nights we spent at the other campsite, Nakosopiri. It transpired that Kakine didn’t have any water, due to a temporary plumbing leak, and we found Nakosopiri to be marginally more atmospheric, though with not quite the same view. Both campsites are excellent.
We were the only self driver guests in the park. We saw one other vehicle on the first day from a lodge, and some researchers were staying at the fancy Apoka lodge (at a heavily discounted rate they told us). That was all the visitors to the park so we had the place more or less to ourselves.
Interestingly no ranger showed up to ensure our security at Nakosopiri. This was just fine with us, I suppose our “we don’t require a ranger” message trickled down to someone who accepted us at our word. It is an open and wild campsite and the rangers told us that lions like to sun themselves on the rocks adjacent to camp so we stayed on alert throughout the evenings.
There were new bird species, notably the Abyssinian ground hornbill and brilliantly colored Abyssinian roller,as well as the grey backed fiscal, piapiac and the black headed gonolek, with its magnificent bright red breast.
On our second day I made a near disastrous mistake, leaving the cap of our 60 liter water tank open while we went on a game drive. The tank was fairly full, with maybe 40 or so liters in it, and we spent a long game drive in the morning bouncing all over the rough tracks of the park. By the time we noticed almost all of our water had been well distributed over all the gear and food in the back of the canopy.
There we were, out of water in hot and arid northern Uganda, our gear and food soaked. Jenny was generously understanding of my mistake, for we have both nearly made this mistake many times before. And thank goodness it is warm and dry here. We spent a couple hours in camp unpacking the back of the vehicle and laying it all out in the sun. Miraculously nothing too bad was lost. Most of the food was either easily dried or the packaging had resisted the water.
Drying stuff out from the water tank disaster. We open the cap in camp to vent the tank. And usually we remember to close it. Oops.
On our Tracks4Africa map there was a borehole marked “staff borehole.” Driving down a dusty and little used track we found a disused manual pump borehole. We worked the pump for a minute or two and out came water. Thus disaster was averted, we topped up our tank with borehole water and all was right.
For our last day in Kidepo National Park we wanted to actually go to Kidepo Valley, as opposed to the Narus Valley where we’d been so far. Since the Kidepo Valley lies right up against the South Sudan border, security is a concern. UWA requires that you take an armed ranger to go there. We got up at dawn and made for Apoka to pick up a ranger. The Kidepo valley isn’t known for having great game viewing, especially in the dry season, but we figured we should check it out since we were here. Why they don’t call this the Narus Valley National Park, since that is where most of the wildlife action is, I don’t know.
Just south of Apoka is a set of kopjes that seemed promising for lions, so before getting our ranger we thought we’d do a quick loop around them, just in case we got lucky.
Lucky we were. Jenny spotted the head of a leopard watching us from between the crevices of two big boulders. He didn’t seem to like us very much, but we got to watch him coming out of his hide to move further up into the rocks.
We’d had a dearth of leopards on this trip, with no real sightings since Zambia. Yes, we saw a spec of one on the far side of a valley in Aberdare. In Zambia our best leopards had been sighted on a guided night game drive, which is not nearly as satisfying as spotting them on your own. The last proper sighting we’d had was when our friend Pete spotted a beautiful adolescent outside Lower Zambezi, but that was months ago.
This sleek cat moved furtively up and around the corner, out of view. I backed the Cruiser around the rocks to regain our view and we saw a second leopard, sunning itself on the rocks above. Two leopards! Leopard number one moved up and disappeared into the rocks.
Our feeling is that leopard sightings are rare enough that you should never leave a leopard sighting, better to let them leave you. We stuck with the second leopard and were blessed with over two hours with him. He moved around and resettled in a new spot a few times and watching them move so gracefully, stealthily disappearing into bushes at times and then reappearing a moment later was captivating. It’s no wonder we don’t see many leopards, their camouflage is very effective. Even when we saw where he’d gone we’d lose track of him until he deigned to reappear.
You might have noticed I said “he” for both, and you might also know that leopards are solitary animals and males certainly do not associate with one another. We have no explanation for this, only that both cats showed us pretty definitive proof.
In his last location the resident rock dassies had noted their new neighbor’s appearance with concern. They congregated on a rock above the leopard, watching down on him and you could almost see the worry on their faces.
Eventually he vanished into the rocks and we let him be. With this fantastic start to the day, we didn’t really care what else happened but we still proceeded to headquarters to pick up a guide for Kidepo Valley.
To Kidepo along the South Sudan Border
It was 0930 by the time we arrived and the rangers asked why we were so late. We explained our leopard sighting and they were pretty excited, saying we were very lucky and it was a great reason to be late.
Our ranger for the day was named Dennis, who was very courteous and happy to hear that we were interested in birds. He rattled off birds as we drove out the track to the Kidepo Valley. As promised the game viewing wasn’t great, one impressive elephant and a few baboons, but we still enjoyed the scenery.
The only real “sight” in Kidepo Valley is a hot spring just a few hundred meters from the South Sudan border. Even that is a bit underwhelming, but that was expected and in any case it was more about making the journey; the drive out and back was interesting. Dennis explained a lot about the park, about the training to become a ranger, all sorts of stuff.
Also we went to South Sudan! Sort of. On our map the road actually crosses the border, only just, and then crosses back. Whether this is true, or whether the map has the border in the wrong spot I don’t know, but in any case there is no visible difference, but we had fun dipping our toe across this invisible border.
We asked Dennis about the lions, which we had not seen in the park. The guidebook (2019) said that there were multiple large prides and an estimated population of 100 lions. Mind you the guidebook also said there are Besia oryx here, which there haven’t been for many decades.
Dennis admitted that the lion numbers were not what they used to be. He reluctantly said there might be as many as 70 lions in the park, but frankly he didn’t even seem to believe himself. He went on to say that there was a problem with the lion population’s health and that UWA was looking into it. More on this later.
After our great success of leopards in the morning, and a brief trip to South Sudan, we were a bit tuckered out. After dropping Dennis off we retired to camp for a bit, taking refreshing cold showers and just chilling out in camp.
Instead of the traditional evening game drive we made a brief jaunt down some game viewing tracks and found ourselves at the Apoka Lodge, where we decamped for refreshments. The only other people there were some researchers from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. We chatted with them for a bit and enjoyed a wonderful sunset from the Apoka Lodge’s deck.
The last morning we woke to a much hazier day, almost foggy. This made for some atmospheric scenes, particularly with the silhouette of the borassus palms. After a solid half day game drive we made our way out of the park.
Some friends had stayed at the Ngamoru Tented Camp, which apparently also allows camping. It lies just outside the park boundary, still in the bush. We bounced along a very rough cutline track towards the camp, realizing later that we had accidentally taken the back road to get there. On the way there we saw a wonderful flock of white headed turaco, but I failed to get a photo.
At Ngamoru we were the only guests. This mid-range lodge is owned by a Zimbabwean family and managed by one of the family, Brenda, another of the Zimbabweans that scattered across the continent in the early 2000s.
She set us up with the keys to one of her bungalows for a toilet and shower. Jenny mentioned that we were looking forward to a cold beer and she responded, “You have cold beer?!” Apparently her last guests, from USAID, had cleaned her out. We offered her one and she joined us with alacrity, her wonderful daughter in tow.
She was a fascinating woman. Her family had been up in Northern Uganda for some 15 years or so, long before the Karamojong disarmament. Now it is just her and her daughter of about 10, living up here in the bush. As we chatted a herd of elephant walked by down the hill and we enjoyed a view of Kidepo National Park in the distance.
Brenda also asked us if we’d seen lions. We hadn’t, and she went on to explain that there is some disaster befalling the lions in Kidepo. She said that the old pride leader, Tim, of the largest pride, had died a few years back and the pride had fractured in two. From then the lions had not been doing well and were suspected to be suffering disease or other misfortune. She went on to explain that UWA was aware of the situation and had come to study the problem, but had been tight lipped since the completion of that study. She suspected feline immunodeficiency virus, or even tuberculosis. I did not know that cats contracted TB.
There was more, about how UWA had also commissioned a population survey of the large buffalo herds that Kidepo is famed for, but they had hired someone who also runs hunting concession adjacent to the park. She suspected that the numbers were inflated, so as to not reduce the hunting quotas that were allowed. I find all these details, the politics and dramas of conservation, fascinating.
It was a pleasant evening chatting with Brenda. She headed off and we made dinner, getting ready for a big drive towards Murchison Falls the next day.
Brenda had advised on the correct road out and our route to Murchison. The haze was even thicker today. Since we couldn’t see that well this made the drive not all that interesting. The roads were gravel at the start and in pretty good shape.
After Kitgum the road changed to tar and we zipped along pretty fast. On this stretch of tarmac the Ugandan authorities are particularly fond of speed bumps, so even with the good road conditions progress is hardly faster than on dirt.
In Gulu we stopped at a supermarket for provisions and had lunch at a proper cafe, the Lookout, recommended by our friends Omar and Miriam we’d run into at the Haven.
A note on provisions, and eggs specifically. In Kenya we had good luck finding decent “yellow yolk eggs” at the supermarkets. This is a change from our last trip to east Africa, where eggs were universally from malnourished chickens eating who knows what. Typically eggs come with the weakest of barely yellow yolks, that always break upon cracking into a pan, or even break in the shell and pre-scramble themselves on the rough roads. That is if you didn’t crack them before on accident, because they’re often sold in a plastic sac, and I can confirm that a sac of eggs is not a robust way to transport them! These weak and pale eggs taste awful. A bit in Tanzania and much more in Kenya now locals are getting a taste for better eggs and you can find them in stores, even in egg cartons proudly pronouncing “yellow yolk eggs.” This trend has not extended to Uganda and we have more or less given up on eggs for the time being.
The last stretch of road towards the park, after Olwiyo, was heavily potholed. This was at the end of quite a few hours on the road and it tired us right out. Not wanting to enter the park ragged from the long drive we decided to stay outside the park, settling on the Heritage Safari Lodge, which also has camping. It’s just a couple kilometers outside the Tangi entrance gate to Murchison.
It was hot and humid here, a big change from Kidepo’s arid climes, and this slowed us down a bit. Again we found ourselves the only guests, but the staff were friendly and we arrived early enough to have a bit of leisure in the late afternoon. The staff were also eager that we have dinner at the restaurant. They told us they were bored and happy to have something to do, so we had a nice dinner of nile perch and chatted with the staff.
Murchison Falls National Park
In the morning we didn’t rush out, as usual timing our entry into the park for the 24hr park permits. This gave us time to tidy up the Cruiser a bit and get organized for three nights in Murchison Falls National Park.
It is just a few minutes drive to the Tangi gate, and here we again found ourselves being charged for daily vehicle entry fees, contrary to the posted “per entry” on their fee schedule. After much discussion over this we relented, but at least we were again classified as a pick-up and not as a 4×4, making it $50 per day instead of $150. If it was $150/day we were going to reconsider our plans.
To our surprise the road through the park was a brand new enormously wide tarmac road, which was a little odd in this wilderness park. There has been a lot of talk about this recently. Forbetter or for worse (I’m gonna’ go out on a limb and guess the latter) oil was discovered in western Uganda, and specifically within Murchison Falls National Park. I imagine the road development is part of some deal with oil companies. More on that sensitive topic here and here.
The plan was to stay at the public campsite just a few hundred meters from the falls themselves, and then spend two nights in one of the delta bush camps, a private wild campsite akin to the Serengeti special campsites.
We made a game drive into the park, not seeing much in the north, but working our way towards the north bank of the delta that is supposedly the prime game viewing area. Huge rollinghills filled our view, green with grass and the charismatic spiky borassus palms. A few elephants were here and there and lots of antelope. It was a nice scene.
Our initial foray into the delta was short, as we intended to head to the falls and our campsite. We’d be back in the delta part of the park for the next two days.
After this pleasant but not groundbreaking game drive in the delta we sped on to see the famous Murchison Falls themselves. Speeding onto the falls was made easy on the huge new tar road that runs through the park. Now there is also bridge across the river, no more waiting for the ferry like there used to be. Too bad, I always like to get the the Cruiser on a ferry.
Arriving at the falls parking area we again met with what felt like UWA trying to make things overly complicated. To visit the falls is, for the time being, free, but this will change in June (or July?) to $10 USD pp, on top of all the other fees already paid. This seemed annoying, and on top of that, to take the short hike upto a viewpoint to see Murchison Falls and the neighboring waterfall from a higher vista it was another $15 pp, in effect now.
Thankfully we dodged this particular bullet, the fee increase being a few months away, and we made the short walk down to the falls, skipping the longer walk and associated fee.
Wonderful! Here the Victoria Nile, the same river that we had camped in front of in Jinja, pours through a seven meter wide gap with furious noise and energy. It is a tremendously large river pushed through a narrow pass in the rock, dropping away something like 20 meters. It was loud and the air was filled with spray, coating my camera. The viewpoint is very close to the falls themselves, it’s really impressive.
A note about all the various Niles. The start of the Nile is somewhat in dispute, as if I recall correctly Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi all lay claim to this. Rwanda and Burundi have tagged some very modest streams as the impetus of this great river, but certainly in Uganda, exiting Lake Victoria, is the first river that is large enough to equate with the grand stature of the Nile that is in my mind.
This first river draining out of Lake Victoria is the “Victoria Nile”. It pours through the gap at Murchison, dumping into the northern end of Lake Albert. Here it drains north and becomes the “White Nile.” Running all the way up to Sudan it joins the “Blue Nile” that comes from Ethiopia. Here at this famous confluence in Khartoum, when the White and Blue Niles join, is where it becomes the mighty Nile that makes its way all the way to the Mediterranean. The internet tells me it takes three months for the water from Jinja to make it to the Mediterranean.
It was getting on in the day and after our impressive falls visit we made for camp, just a couple minute drive from the falls parking lot. However we found camp a bit underwhelming. This could have been a lovely camp perched on a hill with a view of the river, a few hundred meters upstream of the falls.
Instead we found this camp had some flaws, to say the least (see Nitty Gritty), so in spite of having already paid our $6 USD pp to camp here we retreated to the Red Chili Rest Camp, a privately run campsite and lodge within the park. Our fall back plan was made practical by the new road, as it’s some distance away and if it were the old gravel road then no doubt we would have been out after the 1900 curfew. Instead we rolled into Red Chili at 1901, just a minute late.
Red Chili is mostly fixed safari tents and has a congenial bar and restaurant. There is camping for self drivers in one corner. Here we had the happy surprise that Omar and Miriam, our overlander friends from The Haven and Zambia, rolled in to be our neighbors. They were accompanied by their friends that had joined them for ten days or so. This resulted in us staying up way too late, swapping stories and laughing over travel tales and woes.
The following day we made an early morning game drive. The delta region of the park was bursting with life, full of antelopes, warthog, buffalos and giraffes. It seemed to be calving season among the antelope and we saw many a tiny kob, hartebeest and oribi. All were very relaxed around the vehicle and it made for nice game viewing.
Elephant were not about, though we saw their spoor. Also interesting was that many of the giraffe we saw appeared to have some sort of skin disease. The giraffe conservation team at Kidepo had said they were headed to Murchison next, and we hoped to run into them to gain an explanation, but we never saw them and the skin affliction remains a mystery.
Around one corner we spotted a male lion was making his way towards us, but a game drive vehicle from the other direction was approaching very fast and spooked him and he dashed off into the bushes. This was our only lion sighting in Murchison.
In the afternoon we took a boat cruise, which sort of seems like a ‘must-do’ if you visit Murchison Falls National Park. There are three operators and we went with one of the private companies because we thought we were told it’d return a little earlier than the UWA boat, which would be good for getting to camp.
The cruise was pleasant enough, with good bird sightings but not a whole lot in the wildlife department. We did see elephants, hippos, waterbuck and crocodile. They take the boat as far up river and as close to the falls as they can, but this is still a fair distance away, maybe 500m. We agreed that the view from the land was more impressive.
In the end the boat cruise got back a little late and we had to make haste down to our delta bush camp. When we booked it we asked if we could decline the ranger protection and we were told, “It is your right to do so,” so no ranger was waiting for us.
Where exactly the delta campsite is was not entirely clear. There are supposedly two, but as far as we could tell one of them is now underwater. The water level in Lake Albert has risen as other lakes in the region, though perhaps not quite as much.
An old fire ring under tree, not far from the lake shore, indicated a bush camp in approximately the right location and we were happy with this spot. Hippos were behind some reeds at the lakeshore, wheezing and honking away, and some kob wandered by not too far away. Other wildlife left us alone and we had an excellent evening in this wild bush camp.
The night was still but incongruously we could hear the deep bass thump of club music from somewhere across the lake. It was quite a contrast to our bush surroundings. Here in populated East Africa it is really difficult to get a true wilderness campsite where you can’t see or hear any other people. This just goes to show you how special some of the wonderful camps in Botswana are. Not that we were suffering here, but the club music did go on for many hours into the night.
After a dawn start we made an early morning game drive of middling, if pleasant, success. Kob and other antelope and buffalo were thriving in large numbers but predators remained elusive. There is a picnic area with ablutions along the lakeshore and we retired there for a brunch break. Arriving we found to our surprise a helicopter had landed there, from the high end tour company Tropic Air.
While we pondered who gets to go on safari by helicopter tour a guy wandered over to us. He was a middle aged fellow, with a grizzled grey beard, shorts and a bit of a belly, smoking a cigarette and wearing a tattered “Tropic Air” hat. This had to be the pilot, for nobody else could get away with dressing like this at a high end tour outfit. He asked if this was ours, indicating the Land Cruiser. We said it was and in the ultimate case of the grass is always greener, he told us about how someday he plans to get a 4×4 and drive through Africa, he was tired of only looking down on it from the air.
Not long after the helicopter collected its guests, who I was pleased to see still had to use the UWA toilets like the rest of us heathens, and it flew away in a flurry of dust and noise. We retreated to camp, taking a midday break and bush showers. The evening game drive was similar to the mornings, but the wide vistas of the rolling hills of Murchison Falls National Park were again spoiled a bit from very hazy conditions.
A few baboons were hanging out in a dead tree holding something we couldn’t identify. The binoculars and camera revealed that they were gnawing on an oribi carcass. This is very unusual to see. Though primates do eat meat it doesn’t comprise much of their diet. Later I showed a photo of it to an astonished guide who told us he would have said baboons are vegetarians, but that now he knew that not to be the case.
The second night at our bush camp was again pleasant. Buffalo wandered near, but fortunately they turned away before we had to retreat to the safety of the Cruiser. Happily the thumping club music did not last this evening and we slept well in our wilderness location.
In the morning there was a hippo grazing very close the the car. I thumped on the side of our canopy with my hand a couple times and he looked around in bewilderment, then trotted away from the unknown noise. Brush teeth. Boil water. Make coffee and tea. Game drive. Thick haze. The haze was sapping ourenthusiasm a bit and after a lackluster game drive we started our way out of the park, driving south on perfect tar.
Outside the park we passed through Masindi and made our way to the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Next up: Ziwa and farting rhinos, Lake Albert, Fort Portal and Jinja once more.
The Nitty Gritty
Kidepo NP – Our guide, Dennis, said that there are plans for a third campsite, somewhere south of the crocodile pools. On top of this he said the UWA bandas at Apoka are going to be run by a concessionaire, and then UWA planned to “upgrade” one of the existing campsites with more facilities and a dormitory, to be able to accomodate student groups. We asked which campsite was going to get “upgraded” and he said probably Nakosopiri, but all plans had been put on hold because of covid and nothing was finalized.
He also said that bush camping at an undesignated campsite is possible for $80 USD. Whether this is per person or total I don’t know, and you would for sure get a ranger for security. This is an unpublished option, so if you try this make sure you get a receipt.
To visit Kidepo Valley you do need a guide, we confirmed this is a requirement. Interestingly there are no signs or gates saying this, but when I asked they were adamant. The price is $20 USD, which we paid by credit card at the tourist office.
Game drive circuits here are good, but the roads are rough and we felt three nights was about right for timing, longer and we felt we’d run out of things to explore. We really loved Kidepo, it is a beautiful park.
Gulu
We stopped at the Cynibel Supermarket for provisions. They were well stocked, including beer. For lunch we went to the Lookout Cafe, a little east of town (on iOverlander) which offers a bakery, cafe and lunch. The menu was pretty good, but do not order the nachos. They have wifi and also allow informal camping on a huge lawn. Some friends stayed there and loved it.
Ngamoru (Just outside Kidepo) to Heritage (just outside Tangi Gate of MFNP) 350km, 9h 5m including stops for provisions and lunch.
Murchison Falls
We found Murchison Falls (and some of the other Ugandan Parks) sort of tough nuts to crack, logistically a little convoluted. There is something about the way the parks are organized, and the way information is published on the parks, that make them a bit harder to visit with good flow. They feel a bit “chopped up,” with different areas of the park and different charges for different activities. I think Murchison Falls probably has marginally better flow visited south to north, seeing the falls on the way in and then proceeding to the delta campsites.
If the delta camps are too expensive ($40 pppn) then Red Chili is cheap, I think $10 pppn, or there is a public campsite on the north bank of the river, just west of the bridge. At this time it was noisy with the traffic of large trucks working on the road, but presumably this will subside when they are done with the last kilometers of road work.
For the waterfalls, you can view the falls from either bank, but the south bank is the best viewpoint.
Murchison Falls Public Campsite at the Falls –
There were three flaws with this camp. First, they have installed new ablutions, which is a fine idea, but as we have found to be common the ablution block has been situated to have itself a wonderful view of the river, blocking any view for campers. Why the ablutions are not sited at the back of the campsite in the trees I don’t know. There is supposed to be water at this camp, but again, as we found so common at campsites near rivers, they were ironically out of water. Because of the lack of water the sanitation here had suffered severely. The second flaw was that the construction teams that had been building the brand new tar road here had dumped construction debris and piles of gravel all over, so there was not much for places to park the vehicle. Lastly, during our brief survey of the campsite we were practically murdered by tsetse flies, crescendoing in me running for the car in fury, arms windmilling fruitlessly about.
Boat Cruises
The boat cruise in MFNP are either $28, $30, or $32 dollars depending on the operator. The UWA boat looked nice enough, but we went with the more expensive option just because the cruise departed and arrived at a more convenient time. I’m sure any operator would provide a similar cruise. I’m not sure I’d classify the boat cruise as a “must do,” though if you have the budget it is certainly nice.
Pro tip (from the Bradt guide): If you take a boat cruise get a seat on the port (left) side of the vessel. The captains take the boat up river slowly and hug the left bank, getting you a closer view. On the way downriver they have to go faster due to the current, so you don’t get quite as good a close up view if you sit on the starboard side.
All UWA parks now accept credit card or mobile money payments, no cash is allowed.
