Travels in the South West

This blog has been sadly neglected for the past 3 weeks. Our two sons have been with us for a fortnight and we have been travelling. We had some time in Kampala and a week away to Fort Portal, Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake Bunyoni in the South West of Uganda.

Fort Portal

Fort Portal town

Fort Portal is a little under 200 miles from Kampala, more or less due west. It is quite a lot higher than Kampala as it is the gateway to the Rwenzori mountain range so cooler especially at night. It was nice to sleep under a blanket again, but a bit cold getting out of bed in the morning!

Heading into the Rwenzori Mountains

We stayed at a lovely guest house with fabulous meals. An advantage of being part of a group of VSO volunteers is that we all share information about the best places to eat and stay around Uganda. This suits us as Smith family travels tend to revolve around the next place for a cup of coffee or something to eat!

Queen Elizabeth National Park
After 2 nights in Fort Portal we headed south to Queen Elizabeth National Park. At 6am on Friday 13th June we were heading into the park in a safari vehicle in the hope of spotting a leopard. However, it was Friday 13th so no lions or leopards were around. We did see some animals but disappointingly few for such an early start. After a late breakfast we went to the Mweya peninsula and joined a launch trip. This was more successful for game viewing with hippos, buffalo, elephants, a crocodile, a monitor lizard and numerous birds on view.

Lake Bunyoni
After two busy days in the Park what better than a relaxing weekend on an island in the middle one of the most beautiful and peaceful lakes anywhere, Lake Bunyoni in the far south west. We arrived tired on the Saturday evening, leaving the car on the mainland and climbing into to a motorboat for our 15 minute journey to the island.

Our cottage for the weekend looked like it was straight out of a fairy tale.

And the view from the restaurant was fantastic

The sunsets were amazing, but beyond the capability of my little point and shoot camera to do them justice, or beyond my photographic skills! On Sunday we had a walk, hired dug out canoes to explore the island from the water, had a family card games tournament, read and chatted.

Back to Kampala
Monday morning and we were on the road again. After a walk around the town and a coffee in Kabale we went onto Mbarara for an overnight stop.

Leaving Lake Bunyoni

We had one more treat on a drive towards Lake Mburo and a close encounter with a zebra.

Back in Kampala we completed our shopping for gifts to send home and our exploration of the various food choices available before the boys caught their flight home early on Saturday.