Murchison: An oasis of wilderness
Aug 24, 2007
The giraffe looked down at me, his big brown eyes as calm as the savannah evening. Our eyes locked: me, wondering why he was so placid in a place where lions and leopards lurk. He, intrigued by this pale person with a short neck and only two legs.<br>“The giraffes are my favourite,†our guide s
By Theresa Morrow
The giraffe looked down at me, his big brown eyes as calm as the savannah evening. Our eyes locked: me, wondering why he was so placid in a place where lions and leopards lurk. He, intrigued by this pale person with a short neck and only two legs.
“The giraffes are my favourite,†our guide said softly. Then he said to the peaceful giraffe, “Will you teach people to behave like you do?â€
Murchison Falls National Park is a wild place where you can be eyeball-to-eyeball with a giraffe, arm’s-length from a lion and close enough to a crocodile to count his pointy teeth. My husband and I are spending nine months in Uganda. Halfway into our stay, I have travelled to the 1,480-square-mile park three times. it is one of my favourite places in this beautiful country.
At Murchison, safaris are personal affairs, not crowded competitions to see the next big game animal. The park has recovered from the devastating poaching suffered during Idi Amin’s reign.
Elephants now roam in large herds with no fear, their big ears flapping, not far from the occasional safari vehicle.
A female once mock-charged us to protect her baby; it was just a warning that it was her turf, not ours. Lions are said to number about 2005 and we have seen as many as 60 giraffes in one herd. It is the same with other game: graceful kob and oribi (types of antelope), hippos, leopards, bushbuck, hartebeest, waterbuck, mean-looking buffalo. The population of the park is alive and well.
Murchison Falls is a six-hour drive northwest of Kampala, though with the bumpy and dusty roads it can take up to eight hours. The drive takes you through Budungo Reserve, where olive baboons sit in the road, as if preparing you for Murchison, an oasis of wildness where the animals are up close and definitely in charge.
On the evening we bonded with the giraffe, the sun was setting behind a ridge, outlining Murchison’s signature palm trees and acacias. Elephants brought the seeds of the incongruous palms from Sudan and deposited them here, another ranger told us. Now solitary palms poke up from a sea of grass, yellow or green depending on the season, creating a strange and beautiful landscape.
The big cats
Our ranger/guide, Simon, met us early one morning for a game drive on the park’s all-dirt roads. He stated confidently, “Today, we will find the big cats.†(You are not required to have a ranger with you on the game drives, but it is recommended. They know how to find the animals; they also carry a gun to scare away any aggressive animals.)
Our eyes strained as we looked for something furry and gold, but it was Simon who spied one: “There’s a big male! In the grass.†Pulling within eight feet of the resting lion, our driver turned off the Land Cruiser’s engine. We were alone with the lion in the morning quiet as he yawned, stretched and surveyed the grassland.
After several minutes he walked across the track to a water hole, where he met a second male lion. They drank together, these magnificent and muscular animals. We watched for a half-hour. There was not another person, not another vehicle, in sight.
Though you can encounter a line of vehicles as they leave the ferry for game drives, they disperse quickly on the many tracks and you are often alone with the wildlife. (However, on our last trip, earlier this month, we saw nearly as many oil exploration vehicles as safari vehicles, adding an element of worry about the impact on this fragile place and its wild inhabitants.)
On the second trip to Murchison, we saw the same two lions (our ranger and guide recognised the park’s lions). One was loping across the game track toward a pair of fighting kob. “He is hoping they will lock horns and be trapped,†George, our ranger that day, said. “Then he has dinner.â€
But the kob separated and ran off. Walking down the road in front of us, the lion roared so loudly that the air shook. George said he was calling to another lion, and sure enough, there was the other big male lying under a tree, roaring back. An entire herd of kob alertly followed the lion down the road like a crowd of commuters. all eyes were on him, figuring it was better to have him in their sights than not.
All in all, we saw five lions the first trip, seven the second, and another five the third.
One night when we were at dinner on the balcony of the park’s Paraa Lodge, an elephant lumbered by below, munching the garden by the swimming pool (sometimes they take a dip). Later, a couple of hippos came up from the river. There are no evening strolls for Paraa guests.
The Nile
The park gets its name from the spot where the mighty River Nile is constricted and crashes down through a 23-foot wide gap on its journey northward to Egypt. We took the popular boat tour to the foot of Murchison Falls to see hundreds of hippos sneeze and harrumph in and out of the water, and dozens of crocodiles basking with their mouths agape. We drifted in close to see three baby crocs on their mama’s back.
Nearby was the spot where Ernest Hemingway’s small plane crashed in 1954 during the American author’s African safari. he, his wife and the pilot, who weren’t seriously injured, were picked up by a boat much like ours.
At times, the Nile is possibly too alive with creatures for comfort.
As we headed downriver, the boat engine stalled, and we drifted into the reeds. I was excited about being like Katharine Hepburn in the classic film “African Queen†(some scenes were filmed near Murchison), but the other passengers were less amused.
After we spent an hour watching for aggressive hippos and mosquitoes, the engine sputtered and we chugged on, unharmed except perhaps by the Ugandan sun.
On our safaris the rare shoebill, a prehistoric-looking stork more likely seen in Murchison than elsewhere, eluded us, as did the leopards – until our last trip.
Somehow that made sense in this place that belongs to wildlife, not to lines of safari vehicles. If a leopard wants to look us in the eye, like the giraffe, he will. If not, well, good for him.
Theresa Morrow is a journalist living in Kampala, Uganda. She is working with her husband, Bill Ristow, who is a Knight Fellow with the International Centre for Journalists.
The giraffe looked down at me, his big brown eyes as calm as the savannah evening. Our eyes locked: me, wondering why he was so placid in a place where lions and leopards lurk. He, intrigued by this pale person with a short neck and only two legs.
“The giraffes are my favourite,†our guide said softly. Then he said to the peaceful giraffe, “Will you teach people to behave like you do?â€
Murchison Falls National Park is a wild place where you can be eyeball-to-eyeball with a giraffe, arm’s-length from a lion and close enough to a crocodile to count his pointy teeth. My husband and I are spending nine months in Uganda. Halfway into our stay, I have travelled to the 1,480-square-mile park three times. it is one of my favourite places in this beautiful country.
At Murchison, safaris are personal affairs, not crowded competitions to see the next big game animal. The park has recovered from the devastating poaching suffered during Idi Amin’s reign.
Elephants now roam in large herds with no fear, their big ears flapping, not far from the occasional safari vehicle.
A female once mock-charged us to protect her baby; it was just a warning that it was her turf, not ours. Lions are said to number about 2005 and we have seen as many as 60 giraffes in one herd. It is the same with other game: graceful kob and oribi (types of antelope), hippos, leopards, bushbuck, hartebeest, waterbuck, mean-looking buffalo. The population of the park is alive and well.
Murchison Falls is a six-hour drive northwest of Kampala, though with the bumpy and dusty roads it can take up to eight hours. The drive takes you through Budungo Reserve, where olive baboons sit in the road, as if preparing you for Murchison, an oasis of wildness where the animals are up close and definitely in charge.
On the evening we bonded with the giraffe, the sun was setting behind a ridge, outlining Murchison’s signature palm trees and acacias. Elephants brought the seeds of the incongruous palms from Sudan and deposited them here, another ranger told us. Now solitary palms poke up from a sea of grass, yellow or green depending on the season, creating a strange and beautiful landscape.
The big cats
Our ranger/guide, Simon, met us early one morning for a game drive on the park’s all-dirt roads. He stated confidently, “Today, we will find the big cats.†(You are not required to have a ranger with you on the game drives, but it is recommended. They know how to find the animals; they also carry a gun to scare away any aggressive animals.)
Our eyes strained as we looked for something furry and gold, but it was Simon who spied one: “There’s a big male! In the grass.†Pulling within eight feet of the resting lion, our driver turned off the Land Cruiser’s engine. We were alone with the lion in the morning quiet as he yawned, stretched and surveyed the grassland.
After several minutes he walked across the track to a water hole, where he met a second male lion. They drank together, these magnificent and muscular animals. We watched for a half-hour. There was not another person, not another vehicle, in sight.
Though you can encounter a line of vehicles as they leave the ferry for game drives, they disperse quickly on the many tracks and you are often alone with the wildlife. (However, on our last trip, earlier this month, we saw nearly as many oil exploration vehicles as safari vehicles, adding an element of worry about the impact on this fragile place and its wild inhabitants.)
On the second trip to Murchison, we saw the same two lions (our ranger and guide recognised the park’s lions). One was loping across the game track toward a pair of fighting kob. “He is hoping they will lock horns and be trapped,†George, our ranger that day, said. “Then he has dinner.â€
But the kob separated and ran off. Walking down the road in front of us, the lion roared so loudly that the air shook. George said he was calling to another lion, and sure enough, there was the other big male lying under a tree, roaring back. An entire herd of kob alertly followed the lion down the road like a crowd of commuters. all eyes were on him, figuring it was better to have him in their sights than not.
All in all, we saw five lions the first trip, seven the second, and another five the third.
One night when we were at dinner on the balcony of the park’s Paraa Lodge, an elephant lumbered by below, munching the garden by the swimming pool (sometimes they take a dip). Later, a couple of hippos came up from the river. There are no evening strolls for Paraa guests.
The Nile
The park gets its name from the spot where the mighty River Nile is constricted and crashes down through a 23-foot wide gap on its journey northward to Egypt. We took the popular boat tour to the foot of Murchison Falls to see hundreds of hippos sneeze and harrumph in and out of the water, and dozens of crocodiles basking with their mouths agape. We drifted in close to see three baby crocs on their mama’s back.
Nearby was the spot where Ernest Hemingway’s small plane crashed in 1954 during the American author’s African safari. he, his wife and the pilot, who weren’t seriously injured, were picked up by a boat much like ours.
At times, the Nile is possibly too alive with creatures for comfort.
As we headed downriver, the boat engine stalled, and we drifted into the reeds. I was excited about being like Katharine Hepburn in the classic film “African Queen†(some scenes were filmed near Murchison), but the other passengers were less amused.
After we spent an hour watching for aggressive hippos and mosquitoes, the engine sputtered and we chugged on, unharmed except perhaps by the Ugandan sun.
On our safaris the rare shoebill, a prehistoric-looking stork more likely seen in Murchison than elsewhere, eluded us, as did the leopards – until our last trip.
Somehow that made sense in this place that belongs to wildlife, not to lines of safari vehicles. If a leopard wants to look us in the eye, like the giraffe, he will. If not, well, good for him.
Theresa Morrow is a journalist living in Kampala, Uganda. She is working with her husband, Bill Ristow, who is a Knight Fellow with the International Centre for Journalists.