7 November: The source of the Nile

The hotel proved to be OK, although a slight musty smell does seem to hang in the air at times and the air-conditioner in my room is  a bit noisy.
I met up with my mate Keith as expected over breakfast where we made a plan to hire a driver and car for the trip to Jinja to see the source of the River Nile. I was very keen  to see the  source of the river that I knew from living at the other end when I was in Egypt  over 30 years ago.   The other plan was to find Keith a fishing  guide. He is a big fisherperson and the idea of catching a Nile Perch in Lake Victoria  was just too good to be true for a real Territory barramundi man!  Another breakfaster turned out to know another guest who had done just that so before too long the telephone numbers had been obtained from the Russian who had been fishing the day before and Keith was on his way to setting up a deal. Sadly it looks like it will be Friday afternoon and I shall not be able to go as my flight home will depart too early that evening to allow a good afternoon's fishing.

The drive to Jinja was with a local tour guide called Aggrey who had a smart new Toyota with air-con and drove with just the right amount of local knowledge and agression for us to make progress in the horrendous traffic without our being white knuckled all the way, we felt safe all the way. The drive included skirting around Kampala in the suburbs and the traffic was pretty bad. It seems Sunday is when parents visit their kids in boarding schools for picnic lunches etc and so there were lots of cars around as trucks and mini-buses everywhere.

A few of the very many minibuses everywhere we went



Tea to the left, sugar to the right - all we need is a cow for the milk!





The bird gallery at the source of the Nile



The downstream view of the White Nile from the riverside at Jinja

An egret on take-off

Keith witha Nile beer in front of the Nile River

Picnic day at a high school on Sunday

Me with my Nile beer and Lake Victoria behind me - hotel gardens

A Pied Hornbill at sunset in the hotel gardens 

The drive went through lots of agricultural land with acres of tea plantations and sugar cane as well as some rain forest.

 Eventually we saw the lake again and drove over the Owen Stanley hydroelectric dam to reach Jinja and the road down to the official source of the Nile. We parked up and walked to the monument and  then down the the water's edge to see the start of Africa's longest river.

The monument at the source of the Nile

There were plenty of birds to watch with pelicans, egrets, cormorants, and kingfishers on the water side and even Maribou Storks circling lazily overhead. Also there were plenty of souvenir stalls....

Keith negotiating the alley of souvenir stalls

 After not buying T shirts or taking a boast ride we sat down to a lunch at the water side drinking Nile Special Beer (what else) and Keith had fish and chips with tilapia the local major fish.  Then it was time for the drive back, the traffic had got worse which seemed impossible but it took 3 hours to get back to Entebbe. Again we saw a lot of interesting birds including more Maribou Storks and even a few Black Kites just the same as you see in Darwin!  We met up with the counterpart to sort out some work details and then had a sunset beer (Nile again) watching the monkeys and hornbills in the hotel garden as we stared out across Lake Victoria and discussed our work programme for the next 5 days.  There are many interesting birds around but I was not having a lot of luck with my camera. Hopefully I will do better tomorrow.

Traffic on the road to Jinja

Lorry park - Uganda style