Lake Mburo Wildride ATV Safari Artical

September 6th, 2006

Today we intend getting lost a few times. That shouldn’t be too hard in this country. I am using a small compass, taken from the butt of a Sudanese soldier’s army knife, so that we hopefully don’t get too lost. We follow the arrow west, following various sets of tracks, following our noses, till we reached a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Kachera. We drive down to the lakeshore and stop to take pictures. The locals are a bit shy but there’s a lot of laughs and talk of our piki-pikis. Godfrey overhears a woman telling the others about how fast they are as we have driven from Kampala and arrived before the local buses. These buses sit on about 120km/hr along the main highway swerving around potholes and other road users with almost total abandon, so this is no mean feat!

Back out of the village we turn off the vehicle tracks and try to find our own way around the lake shore. We have to push through the bushes in some of the tighter sections (big thorns everywhere) and the real bush bashing part of the trip starts. I keep referring to the compass and wish that I had brought a map. With the lake to our left and the occasional break in the scrub, we start moving more to the south then west. It’s a bit hard to follow the lay of the land while lying on the tank and edging under a prickly bush so I sometimes find that we seem to be heading in the wrong direction. Cattle paths lead in every direction and often it’s just trying to find the point of least resistance. We also come across lots of impala in the scrub.

Occasionally we cross small dirt roads and pass small farming hamlets, aiming basically due south. Lunchtime finds us in a valley amidst clumps of trees; a few small herds of zebra watch us from a distance. We give our backsides a rest and lay on the grass. The picnic lunch in the shade of a large candelabra cactus tree gives some respite from the afternoon sun and fills the hole. We clean up the rubbish and onwards into the hot afternoon, following the compass southwards with a touch of west thrown in.

Eventually we cross a set of wheel-tracks and interpret it as one of the parks trails. Following its meandering path around hillocks, over low ridges, winding across the valley floors we encounter herds of impala, buffalo, zebra, eland, topi and some waterbuck tucked back under the trees. It is the most heavily stocked part of the park and lies right down in the very infrequently visited south-east corner. A real highlight to the safari. It’s also a bit of relief to have a fairly accurate idea of where we are again. I’m never really comfortable with a compass but enjoy the challenge that a GPS would not give.

The track takes us up to the Kazuma lookout and we climb back up to the top. I take time to get a couple of arranged shots of the group with the backdrop rolling out behind. We take the Kazuma trail back to park HQ and then ride up to the Interpretation Centre. Out with the camera again for a shot with water buffalo and waterbuck skulls perched on the front of the Dominic’s and Julian’s quads. ‘Caution wild animals’. We head back down to the park HQ and by way of PR with the park management I get one of the rangers onto a quad to ride it around the HQ area. The Smiths are back at Mantana camp again this evening and the showers are just as good as before. We all eat there for our last night.

The motorcycle course goes well and I find a large gap in the students knowledge of maintenance. I run it for an NGO called Healthy Child who have medical workers using little Honda XL125s to get out to remote areas and attend to newly born babies. Dunno how some of the bikes were still going but hopefully they will attend to basic maintenance in the future! I finish the course with some exercises around the cones. The emergency braking provides a lot of entertainment for the spectators. Then it is 70km back to meet Mr. Godfrey at the park gates and load up. We get out on to the main road just on dark and drive just as far as the next town where we hotel overnight. The trip back to Bujagali Falls the next day is mainly uneventful but Kampala bites Godfrey again while negotiating a detour when he launches a quad through the back window of the van. Another bump on the learning curve. The long drive back gives me time to review the safari and the biggest obstacle to running these amazing rides is the time it takes to get to Lake Mburo. I plan in the future to have 6 quads based permanently at Lake Mburo. More on that in the future…. Happy trails.