Travel: Murchison Falls - Uganda

I've had the privilege of visiting Murchison Falls National Park twice, in 2009 and 2011. The park is situated in the north-west of the country.

The falls themselves are formed when the Nile is forced through a narrow gorge of 7m and then drop 43m. 

  

As well as the must-do safari (if you are staying south of the Nile, make sure you get on the first Paraa ferry in the morning at 7.00am), another recommendation is the Nile River Cruise in the afternoon. Both times we visited we did the cruise in the afternoon and then safari in the morning. The cruise takes you to within site of the Falls.

Cruise

Within 5 minutes of our first cruise in 2009 we were greeted with an incredible site, approximately 25 elephants drinking out of The Nile  

Not long after we cruised past a pod of hippos with a buffalo knocking about on the bank.

 Then some more elephants before the exciting view of crocs!

On our 2011 cruise we were lucky to see a giraffe, the first one spotted on the cruise for five years.

The BMS Uganda Team 2009

Safari

Both times that we did the safari we didn't have a safari spec vehicle, rather we just had a normal Toyota Hiace 4 x 4. We had a few strange looks from people in safari jeeps while we were stretching inside the van for photos through windows. However, we still managed to see some amazing animals, the highlights for me being a male and female lion in 2009 and a lioness and cubs in 2011.

Here's a selection of my other favourite photos...

Hey why the long face?