Gorillas
We had a lovely campsite on the shores of Lake Buyonyi.

A view across the lake through some palm trees.

A view along the shore.

A view along the opposite side of the shore with a diving platform in the foreground. The lake is up to 650 feet deep but the springboard here is purposefully short ad not very

I took a day trip leaving Lake Buyonyi before dawn to visit Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, one of only two places where you can trek with mountain gorillas. We headed into the hills and there some stunning sights and beautiful scenery. The area id very fertile and a good climate to grow just about anything.

The head of the valley and the edge of the national park where the fields end and the jungle begins.

Looking back down the valley.

A photo to try to catch the steepness of the sides of the valley and however steep, there is something growing.

We would be trekking into the forest to see the Bitukura family of mountain gorillas. The oldest member of the family is Rukuma, an elderly male with a distinctive bent finger. His name translates as Finger as he seems to be giving everyone the one finger salute. The dominant male used to be his brother but he fell out of a tree and was killed. Therefore the much stronger and younger male Mugisha is now the dominant male. His name means Lucky. A gorilla looking out across the jungle.

A closer view of two gorillas.

One of the females, probably Betina.

We could get quite close to the gorillas, here is Heather under two metres from a juvenile.

One of the babies staring down at us.

This is what the forest looks like through a gap in the canopy.

There is so much greenery it can be hard to see anything, but then that is why it is called impenetrable.

Another juvenile.

A close up of Mugisha, the dominant male.

The equator in Uganda 

After several days in a great hostel, it was time to leave Kampala and travel to the far south west of the country. The hostel had everything, purpose built and manicured gardens, plus wifi, swimming pool, beer and cheap food.

I had already crossed the equator but this place had a little more to see. One of the signs plus a yellow line crossing the road to indicate the equator.

The sign on the other side of the road and the line continues up to and through the door of a local restaurant.

After the hostel in Kampala we would be bush camping again but we did stop off at a hostel and restaurant en route with a grand entrance (the tusks aren't real).

There were some statues in the grounds such as this tall piece made of bronze people.

And the coat of arms of Uganda, a crested crane and a Ugandan job flanking a shield.

 And then we headed off to the mountains and it Nisan area of steep mountains, deep valleys and lakes and sometimes called Africa's Switzerland. A view down the valley.

 A view from the top of a pass as we descended towards Kanbale.

 One of several lakes in the area

Lake Victoria

On our way to Lake Victoria, we stopped at Chacaik Arboretum near Kericho. 

It wasn't the trees that were my focus, it was the tea estate that surrounds the arboretum. It has over 11,000 hectares of tea gardens and employs 18,000 full tie workers and 4,000 seasonal workers. Only the top three new leaves are picked from the bushes every two weeks. The leaves are fermented and dried for black tea or just dried for green tea before being packed into crates and auctioned in Mombasa.
Our guide showing us around the tea gardens.

Tea gardens stretching away to the horizon.

In both directions.

Our next stop was Kisumu which sits at the head of a bay on Lake Victoria and it was my first view of the lake. Our camp site was next to Hippo Bay and there is a clue in the name. There were hippos in the water and we were warned to stay away from the shore especially at night when the hippos came ashore to graze. 

That would not be a problem as England were playing that evening and we would all be at the bar. But of greater concern was the fact that at our last lake side camp site there was a fence between us and the lake but this site had no fence so we had to be careful. 

A view of the camp site next to Lake Victoria.

                                     

A view of the lake.

Monkeys running around the camp.

And some birds.

We crossed into Uganda and around Jinja we passed through huge sugar cane plantations. These are the fields belonging to Kakira Sugar Works based in nearby Kakira. They are the countries largest sugar producer with an annual output of 180,000 tons,  45% of the country's output.

Sugar cane for as far as the eye can see.

Lake Naivasha

I left Nairobi and drove north west to Lake Naivasha. The road reached the edge of the Great African Rift Valley with views from the top of the cliff across the valley floor.

The snaked its way diagonally across the steep slope to get to the valley floor.

There are several dormant volcanoes along the edge of the fault line.

My next camp site was on the shores of Lake Naivasha with a bar and restaurant set in the trees near the shore.

A general view of the grounds with the lake in the back ground.

Everyone has to be careful about what they leave out as the monkeys will steal anything.

A pair of monkeys eyeing up the potential takings across the campsite.

The next day I went to Elsamere, the home of Joy Adamson of Born Free fame. This is the Land Rover that George Adamson was murdered in by poachers.

 There is an arboretum and botanical gardens that surround the house.

 Inside the modest house that was home to George and Joy Adamson.

 The outside of the house which is now a hotel and they serve afternoon tea on the lawn.

 The site overlooks Lake Naivasha and is in a beautiful location but you must exercise caution as their are hippos and crocodiles.

 Another view across the lake.

The Serengeti,

a famous place meaning endless plain in Swahili and it was created in 1946 and all the Maasai people in the park had to move out and many of them went o to the Ngorongoro convservation area. This was sun rise.

 And another photo of the sun rise through an acacia tree which is so typical of Africa.

 And we hadn't gone far from our camp amid we had found s breeding herd of elephants.

 And al the time we were watched by a solitary giraffe.

 And the herd had several wayward juveniles who were sparing.

 And they kept on sparing.

 And they even shook hands during their sparing.

 And at other times there were herds of wildebeest crossing the road so that we couldn't go on.

 And we found a vehicle belonging to a project to follow some cheetahs.

 The researchers who told us where the cheetahs had settled down for the the heat of the day.

 But the cheetahs were still active if some prey came within range but it was only a secretary bird and the cheetahs weren't serious about catching a bird as there is so little meat to share.

 But we did see a klipspringer resting n a rocky  outcrop or kopjie.

 And despite being in the middle of nowhere there is always modernity and we were overflown by a local flight.

 Another hippo who was not about to pose for me.

 And lions in trees which have been seen before.

 A close up.

 A photo of one of the females japing down from the tree.

 But many are still too sleepy to move.

 But the migration started today and the animals are moving. They are set in their ways and will folllow each other in single file across the savannah.

 Hey! a very funny coloured lizard as we exited the park.

 And a selfie.

 And of course I can't miss some Land Rovers.

 And despite not being able to climb Kilimanjaro and having bot seen it whilst we were nearby, finally I get to see the top, but from a distance.