August 19 - The Equator, Queen Elizabeth National Park and the Kazinga Channel Cruise

We spent the morning on the road on our way to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  

Along the way we stopped at the equator.  We have flown over it several times and crossed by boat a couple of times but this is our first land crossing.  They had a big sign…Mary is in the Northern Hemisphere and Paul is in the Southern.

There was an enterprising young man there that gave us information about the equator and had bowls with holes in the bottom set up to demonstrate that water in the Polar Bear bowl (Northern Hemisphere) spirals clockwise down the drain while water in the Penguin bowl (Southern Hemisphere) spirals counterclockwise. He also had a bowl right on the equator and the water in that bowl definitely just drained through the hole.  It didn’t spiral at all (he placed a small leaf in each bowl so you could easily see the rotation.

While at the stop the young man pointed out some fresh lion prints from the night before.  Lions have really large paws!!!

Us and our vehicle.

The entrance to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

On the way in to the park we stopped at an overlook.  It had a small, round, thatched building that was used when Queen Elizabeth visited the park in the 1950's.  The park was named after her at that time. 

We passed crater lake watering hole in the distance.  There were Cape Buffalo there. 

 

We saw quite a lot of wildlife while on our way to the restaurant for lunch.  The park has lots of Kobs, a small antelope. 

We also saw warthogs,

waterbucks,

a herd of elephants with some little ones, 

and Cape Buffalo.

The park had lots of birds.  Some of the ones we saw were the Long Crested Snake Eagle,

a Martial Eagle,

lots of Red Bearded Ox Peckers on the backs of animals,

and the Black Headed Gonolek.

We had lunch on the patio of a very nice hotel there in the park.  The patio overlooked the Kazinga Channel and it was beautiful. 

We also had a chance to enjoy some energetic birds eating at a feeder very close to where we were sitting.

After lunch we drove down to the jetty where we boarded a small boat for a cruise along the Kazinga Gorge.  The channel runs between Lake Edwin and Lake George (named by the British when Uganda was a British Protectorate).  The ride hugged the sides most of the way so that we could look for wildlife.  The pilot/guide seemed extremely knowledgeable.  

We immediately saw some elephants

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Video of elephants
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and a monitor lizard along the bank.

He pointed out a lot of birds including the Squacco Heron,

lots of pied kingfisher everywhere,

Kingfisher Homes

and an African Jacana

We also saw a Fish Eagle that looks very like the American Bald Eagle but is smaller.

We saw many water buffalo in and along the water,

a fair number of hippos,

and a single crocodile.

There were also tons of birds.  These are just a few:

Egyptian Goose

Blackwinged Stilt

Yellow Billed Stork

Goliath Heron

Malacite Kingfisher

Black headed Weaver (and their incredible woven nests)

Red Throated Bee Eater

and the Hammerhead or Hammerkop.

Just beyond a fishing village

we came across an area with tons of pelicans

and cormorants.

It was a most interesting cruise.

On the way out of the park we saw some banded mongooses (mongeese?).

From there we headed off to our new hotel.  Along the way we needed to cross the Kazinga.  Unfortunately the bridge was closed for construction and we had to cross on a ferry.  It was a small ferry that had two “wings” for pedestrians and room for about 5 or 6 vehicles, depending on the size.  The backup to get onto the ferry was massive.  However, Francis maneuvered around and was able to get in front of the line.  Again, being a Tourist Vehicle is a massive help as we seem to have priority over pretty much everything else.  On our trip there were two trucks and three cars and tons of motorcycles.  As we were crossing on the ferry, Mary had visions of a headline reading “Ferry in Uganda Sinks, No Survivors”.  The thing really seemed overloaded. 

We are staying at the Mazinga Lodge…very small with about 9 cottages scattered on the side of the valley wall and overlooking the East African Rift Valley.  The cottage is lovely with a large patio in front.

We are to go on an early game drive tomorrow and were expecting to leave about 6:00am.  At dinner Francis came by to tell us that the ferry doesn’t start operating until 7:00.  So he had taken our vehicle to the other side of the river, taken the ferry back, and then arranged for another tour guide to pick him up and bring him back to the hotel.  In the morning we headed to the river with the guide friend and took a private boat over to get our vehicle.  Very creative.