Queen Elizabeth National Park

Beholding groups of lions napping in trees was spectacular!

We stayed at Mbewa Lodge and Ishasha Camp. Highlight of our whole trip was a boat trip on the Kazinga Channel seeing so many water birds and elephants. Tree-climbing lions were amazing in Ishasha

An interesting park but a little too crowded for my own taste. A nice selection of wild life

Game drives in Queen Elizabeth

I spent one day and one night in Queen Elizabeth and did the game drive in Inshasha and one in the north of the park. The scenery was good especially in the south of the park. We saw lots of animals including several close encounters with elephants. Sadly no lions though. I drove my personal car but we picked up an UWA ranger for the game drive. I'm glad we did since he knew the best places to stop which I would have likely passed otherwise. We stayed overnight @theRiver which I definitely recommend. Good food and accommodation. There were not many other tourists around so it felt like we had a lot of the park to ourselves. I went in February which is the dry season and was a nice climate.

Very big park, lots of opportunities to spend several days.

Uganda's main safari park. Worth a visit if you are in Uganda, but I think there are better opportunities outside Uganda for big game. They changed the rules recently so drivers get fined if they go off the trails. I appreciate that there is probably an environmental reason for this, but it meant that we didn't get very close to any of the animals

When we visited half of the Park at Ishasha had been burnt to encourage the regrowth of grass and tree species so it felt a little sparse and barron. We did see plenty of Antelope species here along with Warthogs, Hippos down by the river and lots of different forest butterflies but missed out on the tree climbing Lions as they had gone further out of the park that day. Saw plenty but often at distance.

good for gaming

safari as it is!

The Uganda's National Park: The Queen Elizabeth

It is going to be 4 years since we went to Uganda, July 2008, our second destination in Africa in the south hemisphere. Our first destination was Botswana the year before and it made our trip: Kalahari, Okawango (Moremi), Savuti, Chobe river, Victoria Falls, all a "must-see".
This time we were thinking about the high mountains of central Africa. First option was Kilimanjaro, but we couldn't; so we thought about the Mountains of the Moon. We tried to arrange a hiking up to those mountains but we didn't have enough days for it. Finally we chose Uganda because all its highlitghted places: Virunga NP, Lake Bunyonyi, Bwindi Impenetrable NP, Rwenzori Mountains, Lake Victoria and Queen Elizabeth Park.
We went by our own with a driver and the Bradt guide under the arm. We entered the Q.E.N.P. by Ishasha where the climbing lions live, crossing tea plantations. Unfortunately, we weren't lucky and we couldn't enjoy the beauty of these feline although we saw a variety of animals: buffalos, impalas, monkeys, elephants, antelopes, and the screams of hippos in the river... When we arrived to the camp, we met a dutch guy who showed us the climbing lions on his videocamera. That's safari, luck.
We headed towards our cottage, typical round house with three beds with mosquito net and a oil lamp. The accomodation was fair for our budget and the toilettes I don't remember, but when you are in safari...
Next day we headed to Mweya, where the Q.E.N.P. headquarters are. The trip was a tough one due to the condition of the track. It rained and the dirt road was very muddy. Finally we arrived Mweya. We couldn´t afford the Mweya Safari Lodge, but it looked great. Actually we went there for a delicious dinner and for a whisky on the rocks, all of it for a very reasonable price. If I remember well, the whisky was 2 euros. We lodged at the Mweya Hostel which was simply ok, just for sleeping. That afternoon we took the boat that goes along the Kazinga channel, an extremely recommended activity. We watched lots of animals: hippos, buffalos, elephants, cocodriles, antelopes and, over all, birds, lot of them, it was a great spectacle. And the sunset over the Lake Edward, superb.
Next day, we took a loop around the Q.E.N.P. with no luck again, no felines sighted. We exited the park and we headed towards the close Kyambura Gorge where we enjoyed watching the chimpances jumping from tree to tree and the hippos bathing. And we left behind the Q.E.N.P. stopping at the equator line enjoying a fresh Nile Special.

Conclusion: we enjoyed being at Q.E.N.P. although we weren't lucky with felines. It is a very easy-to-handle park.
Here you can take a look of one of my videos there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI_aDSUC6vk