A Night Game Drive

With a sale hopefully agreed for our RAV4, we decided to have a final weekend away to Lake Mburo National Park. We went there last September to use our park passes for the first time so it seems fitting to have travelled there to use our park passes for the last time.

Lake Mburo Park is one of only 2 places in Uganda to see Zebra, the other one is Kidepo right up in the North Eastern corner.

It's a beautiful park on a smaller scale than Queen Elizabeth or Murchison Falls. We left early on Saturday morning to get to the park for lunch so we had a full 24 hours there. It was incredibly dry as there hasn't been any rain for 3 months! Rain was expected and hoped for at any time and while we were there it did feel like it would rain and there were a few drops.

After lunch we drove into the park with the aim of finding our way to the Kazuma Lookout viewpoint. This is on the south side of the park and gives a wonderful view over the plains stretching towards Tanzania and the 5 lakes along the southern edge of the park.

But en route we saw lots of zebra, impala, warthogs and a few buffalo.

A particularly grumpy impala!

We found the road to the lookout and headed up. And it was up, nearly a 1:2 we thought. Our little RAV struggled a bit on the stony surface but made it safely to the top. We were rewarded with a fabulous panorama over the plains and the lakes. 

The road to the viewpoint - before the steep bit!

We stayed in Rwakobo Rock again and had a lovely banda with a fantastic view across the park. After an early dinner we headed off on the highlight of our trip, a night-time game drive in the park. The Lake Mburo park is one of the few where you can take a night game drive. We decided not to drive ourselves but hired a land rover with a pop up roof and driver from Rwakobo Rock. We also had a UWA guide and a very large powerful spotlight.

We were barely into the park before we saw a spotted hyena on the road ahead. During our 2.5 hour drive we covered most of the park and saw several animals you only see at night, bush-babies with their big eyes glowing in the spotlight, a white tailed mongoose and a marsh mongoose, but sadly not a leopard. It was a beautiful clear night with a full moon so we could see quite clearly. There were many more buffalo around at night and at one point we had to follow a herd as it made its way slowly along the road. All in all a fabulous experience we'll remember for a long time.

Sunday morning was just a lovely quiet lazy morning followed by a good lunch and the drive back to Kampala.

Glen in the restaurant at Rwakobo Rock with the lovely views out over the park.