Awesome African Adventure. Day 15-April 23, 2025

Wilson Exclusive Safari – Queen Elizabeth NP Chimps to Kibale NP

Here’s the pictorial summary. The blog follows below.

A shout out to Keith (Suzie’s husband and our flight agent.) We’ve had yet another Kenya Air flight cancellation (28/4 and re-allocated to 29/4) which messes with the start of our Tanzanian Safari. Keith has been working hard to find alternatives since the 19th and still no joy. We can’t thank him enough for his time and expertise to try and sort something out. While we continue our adventure.

Left the Buffalo Lodge at 7:20.

Today we are swapping the Kibale Chimpanzee Tracking Experience to QE NP as the Kibale ones have not been cooperative.

Out onto main road. Saw another Palmnut Vulture flying in front with distinctive white wingtips. It landed for a better picture than yesterday.

Turned left to Kyambura (chiambura) Gorge and River (21km long) where the QE NP Chimp Experience is.

Guide today is Judith and guard Emmanuel.

The gorge was formed by movement of tectonic plates. It is filled with a tropical rainforest.

Chimps share 98.7% DNA.

Judith explained the Tick plant – the chimps eat this to assist with contractions during birth. (I wonder if this is how the Batwa learned about the properties of leaves by observing the animals around them?)

A very muddy and at times slippery trek. We can’t believe the size of both the elephant and hippo prints in the same mud tracks we are walking on. We also struggle to picture the hippos and elephants getting up and down the steep paths down into and out of the gorge.

The chimps use leaves of the fig to support digestion of the monkey meat they kill.

270 hippos were counted in the river last night July. We saw and heard plenty today. At times we were less than 10 metres from them.

We climbed out of the gorge at 10:08 for Wilson to pick us up and drive two minutes to get closer to where the chimps might be.

We walked another 10 minutes or so back down into a the gorge across a hanging bridge and a few boardwalks and finally came across 5 Chimpanzees high high above in the trees. Two females, two young ones and a juvenile.

It was neck craning very hard work holding camera up and steady. So poor shots might be the only shots. But we saw them in the wild!!!!

We were very slow walkers as we are interested in all things down there in the gorge and rainforest.

There were squirrels initially running into a tree. We saw and heard heaps of hippos. They were vocalising a lot. Took a long time to capture that sound on video. We eagerly await Phil’s video of the males vocalising.

We saw a few birds, lots of plants and fungi.

Judith thanked us for being a resilient group as many would have given up.

Back to the lodge for a well needed shower and get our filthy pants and shoes off. Then to lunch and pay our bill.

Wilson packed all our gear into the rear of the Troopy. He is an excellent packer and he is very happy with our soft sided bags. (He indicated that the Japanese are the most problematic- coming with huge hard cases, which then have to be packed and tied on top- a hard and heavy job I imagine.

We crossed the Kikirongo Equator Line and stopped for photos at a very impressive sculpture.

Headed North into Kasese town, a big chimney appeared which is associated with copper mining. A small town tour. The area is known for growing cotton and coffee on the mountains.

Rwenzori Mountains to the left. The Mabuka River runs through town and water is from ice melt.

Pretty soon after Kasese we passed a prison farm and concrete factory and into Hima.

Kibale Lodge which we turned east towards is the most expensive in Uganda $2500 pp twin share per night.

Wilson locked the hubs in as the road ahead is bumpy and even more so in the rain it seems.

The scenery changed we moved from commercial/industrial to agricultural in the blink of an eye. Bananas and corn growing everywhere.

Unfortunately the heavy rain obscured great views out to the left.

Lots of kids walking home from
School in the rain with absolute torrents running down the roadsides.

This area has the highest concentration of white people in Uganda. Good weather etc is rhe attraction.

Coming downhill it turned to rainforest. Evidently owned by a couple of British people.

Driving past beautiful crater lakes on a slimy mud track required the employment of 4wd. It was a challenge for the poor bodaboda rider with four people on board trying to maintain a straight line and upright in the boggy conditions.

A bit later Wilson disengaged the 4wd, a tad early as it turned out as closer to the lodge we slipped into the wheel ruts on side of road (thankfully with a bank between us and the drop to the left) 4WD was needed to drive out!!

Our Lodge is Chimpanzee Forest Lodge overlooking a crater lake and Kibale NP. This area is the Primate capital of the world.

We were welcomed by Nicholas to be briefed and welcome drink today- sensational Watermelon, beetroot, passion fruit and pineapple juice. Ordered dinner. The lodge has 24 hour power unless on generator (due to power outage – which we had in the rain) then it goes off at midnight.

Then to our rooms to settle in before dinner. Suzie took off for the dining area which has wi-fi. I phaffed cleaning camera and getting sorted. Very tired today after too few hours sleep so getting organised takes longer.

There were also some Turacos in the trees in front of our room and beautiful views over tea plantation into the mist filled Kibale NP. Stunning to just sit and watch from our verandah for a bit. Off to join Suzie and review the day. We are all pleasantly surprised that we have some acceptable chimpanzee shots.

Sun/raindowners – G&T and beers enjoyed and dinner of Courgette Fritters (cream of mushroom soup for the others) and we all had the Pasta Arabiatta and Banana Fritters with chocolate sauce. It was lovely to have Wilson join us for dinner and stay in the lodge too. (the guides usually leave and stay in a village nearby it seems).

We are only four kms from Wilson’s Village.

A little red footed green frog hopped by while downloading pics etc.

Then time for a shower and an early night. It’s cooler here so hopefully sleep comes more easily.