Biking through Murchison falls National Game Park
Apr 07, 2014
Forget about every definition of fear and risk you’ve ever known. Exploring a wild park on a bicycle is an adventure that means risking it all; inclusive of being preyed on by beastly carnivores to which the wilderness is not only a habitat but also hunting ground.
By Solomon Oleny
Forget about every definition of fear and risk you’ve ever known. Exploring a wild park on a bicycle is an adventure that means risking it all; inclusive of being preyed on by beastly carnivores to which the wilderness is not only a habitat but also hunting ground.
I am glad I was among 70 or so staff of Brussels airlines that traversed Murchison falls National Park and won this game in a 70 km expedition Code named Bike for Africa.
The expedition was the climax lap of a week-long 450 Km fun packed charity ride held in early February with the intent of raising E100, 000(approximately Shs330M) for Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services in Uganda (CoRSU), a private not for profit hospital in Uganda that sponsors the rehabilitation and surgery of disabled children.
The start
When many think of wild animals, they think of endangered creatures in need of love and protection due to their vulnerability to extinction. Ironically, when animals in wilderness think of humans, they cannot help but drool because it triggers mind blowing thoughts of prey they can make a good meal out of.
Taking this into consideration, Uganda Wildlife Authority provided tones of armed rangers ahead of the voyage as early as 7:00am-at Chobe Safari lodge which was the starting point. In the interest of avoiding congesting the parks narrow murrum tracks, the riders were to ride in groups of 10 each.
They would be followed by a convoy of six topnotch support team cars-inclusive of a truck stocked up with all sports bicycle spares, an ambulance, a media van, refreshment van and two luggage trucks.
As planned, the adventure was flagged off westwards at 9:00am with the hope that it would meet its end at 2pm at Paara Safari lodge. WHAT LUCK! Barely a kilometer into the expedition, there was plenty of wildlife to see sooner than we expected.
There were seven majestic Rothschild giraffes, four gigantic elephants, monkeys and baboons not forgetting three starved marabou stocks that were making a good breakfast meal out of the corpse of an antelope.
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Brussels CEO handing over the cheque to CoRSU's CEO Thomas Cook. Photo by Solomon Oleny
The start of the expedition was fired up with an awesome welcome that left us thinking, “It’s going to be a pricelessly rewarding adventure!!” All this great luck was because the park had lost its once wild vegetation cover to controlled burning as carried out weeks earlier with the intent of enabling fresh grass to grow.
As a result, the park was so clear that even the most shortsighted person could see something that was kilometers across.
While it had always been good to tour the park in a game drive, the game ride had taken it to a whole new level because it was giving us an up-close with Mother Nature.
As tough luck would have it, all this bliss of pleasures was extinguished the moment we peddled into a rough stretch whose five meter wide road was under the reign of sharp edged murrum crystals and spiky thorns as dispersed from the whistling acacia trees which were dotted all over the park.
All it took to get a puncture was the slightest miscalculation. For every ten minutes ride, at least 12 bicycles sustained multiple punctures that translated into more stopovers-during which the bikes would be fixed by switching new tires and tubes.
What sucked the most is that while the fixing seemed to take forever because so many nuts and screws to be unfixed and later fixed, we were in the middle of a stretch dominated by thick towering shrubs-which is a renowned haven for the parks cats especially lions, leopards and hyenas.
The longer the fixings took, the more fear and panic chilled our bones-as we were at the mercy of any animal that cared to attack and devour us.
To avoid any “I WISH” scenarios, team work came into play. While folks whose bikes needed to be fixed did the necessary, those whose bikes were okay kept their eyes racing in all directions in a move to alert the armed rangers about anything they sensed suspicious.
Thank God, our prayers for hell not to break loose were answered and the safari was shortly back on course. As a result of the unending punctures, our pace was halved and the adventure turned sour and long. Most troubling, we were literally melting because the temperature was increasing by the minute.
Accordingly, folks applied thick layers of sun bun onto their bodies at the first refreshment stopover and off the adventure continued.
As it turned out, the punctures soon became a blessing in disguise because the more punctures we sustained, the more stopovers we had, and the more opportunities we got to relish the spirit soaring endowments and drop dead gorgeous landscapes of the wild.
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This was during the last 11 Kms. Photo by Solomon Oleny
Goodness, pink flowery vegetation’s, dulating hills and gigantic trees formed a combination that was as splendid as an award winning picture.
One thing to hate though was the deceptive distances of the park. While they looked very near and easy to cover, they were much further.
At bout 2PM, we reached the second stopover for a thirty minutes lunch break. Folks were as worn out as patients on the verge of breathing their last.
Many wanted to give up but due to the cowardice of looking like losers, they hanged on and kept their eyes on the price.
However this time round they didn’t ride on their own but with help of healthy energy booster such as plenty of glucose, bottled energy drinks and water which they tacked in the back pockets of their riding shirts.
Outside of the 'big game' from giraffes to the buffaloes which were quenching their thirst at a distant banks of the parks rivers, the unexpected bonuses were the birds - very colourful and exotic-some of which were too tiny to be seen.
Unfortunately, most of the ardent birders didn’t tag along with their binoculars because they didn’t expect such bliss of pleasures.
Between mid-day and 3pm, we successfully covered a distance of 30 kilometers, and left with 11km to go. Precisely, in this time we peddled through hilly and sloppy plains with a couple to intersections. To ensure that riders didn’t get lost, rangers were stationed at the various junctions to give directions and signage.
At around 2pm, things begun to fall in place as the temperatures of the scorching sun begun to drop. There was nothing to fear anymore we were into a smooth murrum that was free of thorns hence no more punctures.
The best part of the day was ushered in at around 2:30 after we rode into a zone jammed with over 1000 antelopes that were migrating towards the North of the park-where fresh grass was in abundance.
Eventually, between 4pm-6:30pm we arrived at Paara our destination where we punched the air in triumph and smiled at each other in excitement for having made it. However, we would go to bed early as we had a busy day ahead which would be graced by the handover of the charity cheque at CORSU Entebbe.