Queen Elizabeth National Park Uganda

We have commenced our journey to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (sounds a bit foreboding) to see the mountain gorillas stopping for 4 days in Queen Elizabeth National Park (they have really hung on to the fact that the Queen visited the park in the 1950's). The park is located virtually right on the equator and bordering the Congo. Sorry but Dave insisted on a Larry photo at the antiquated equator sign.

The park has some really spectacular scenery - sitting at the foot of the Rwenzori mountains (see the movie Mountains of the Moon to get a low down on the historical significance of the mountains - something about the source of the Nile). The park lies between Lake Edward and George with heaps of hippos, crocs, buffalos and elephants living in the channel between the two lakes. We went on a 2 hour boat ride up the channel and it really wasn't hard to take some beautiful photos.

After spending a wonderful day in the park, the animal action didn't stop when the sun went down. During the day we picked out our campsite - I should say Dave picked our campsite based on the campsite that had the most animal footprints -  including hippos and leopard prints (apparently the park has a 'pet' leopard that visits the campsite every few days).  Well lets just say we weren't disappointed - that night we were visited by a herd of elephant and had the pleasure of hippos grazing under our tent most of the night (noisy fellows). We should have known something was up when as dark fell all of these safari vehicles turned up - not to camp but as part of their night safaris!!! I must say the sleepless night didn't do much to change my views on camping.

The park is also one of the few places you can see the Ugandan cob - he is very pretty but it is hard to get too excited about antelope when there are hippos and elephants around. The last 2 days we are going in search of tree lions - lets hope our luck holds after a magical afternoon trekking with the chimps.