2nd Day’s of 10 Days Motorcycle Adventure tour in Uganda

2nd Day’s of 10 Days Motorcycle Adventure tour in Uganda

Morning Sight view

Waking up at 5:30am was not pleasant but worth spending the night in the tent, we could clearly hear Hyenas, hippos and lion roaring the whole night, we started getting dress, our breakfast was waiting for us the at table, we had quick breakfast and head out to catch the ferry to cross the Nile river, most of the wildlife is across the river so everyone who wants to go for Game drive they either away northern side of the park across the river or stay southern side of the park before the river.

Views of Nile River

Ferry leaves every after 1hour, we try to catch the first 7:00am Ferry, we left redchilli at 6:15am, everyone looked fresh and kept asking the guide why leaving so early and what’s the point of waking up this early in the morning? the guide answer was very simple, “you are about to find out”, ferry crossing was just 100meters away from the Lodge where we stayed last night, arriving at the banks we saw 100s of hippos in the water and elephants across the river, anyone could see amusement on Jerry and his family`s faces so we parked the bikes right front of the ferry and waited for the Pilot to tell us when to load the bikes, there were about 20 cars around us and all full of tourist and they all stood outside their cars and watch us and i am pretty sure they were wondering where the hell are we going on the motorcycle, one of the tourist couldnt hold his amusement  and decided to come close and ask, that what are our intentions and where are we going so the guide simply reply, “we are going to do a Motorcycle Safari” the answer surprised him and he replied are you not afraid of wildlife out there, so our guide replied, no not at all, we have been doing this past 10years and its more fun than sitting in the car, well the Ferry has stared so we had to go and load our bikes onto the ferry, pilot Saw our bikes and said you guys should come first and park your bikes in front of all the cars so we did, took us about 10mins to cross the river.

Introduce with the Ranger JOSEPH

as soon as we crossed the river we had our armed Ranger waiting for us on his bike to take us into the wilderness of Uganda, the ranger(joseph) introduced himself to Jerry and his Family and without wasting any moment he started leading the whole group, just after few minutes of riding he stopped and asked us to switch off our engines and gathered around so he can brief us about the national park and the animals, he did say we will try to find big cats if they are outside the bush and if they are in the open, along the way we will see so many animals like giraffes, elephants, cape Buffalos, antelopes and other wildlife and he showed us some hand signs to remember, which will indicate when to stop, when to switch off the ignition, when to look left or right and when to continue, as he was briefing us so many tourist cars were passing us and tourists pull their heads out of the car window and wonder why we stopped, some waive their hands and some stopped to ask us if we have seen anything yet, in few minutes we realized that all these tourist cars are looking for same thing (Big cats).

Heading with Ranger

so without wasting any further time we came back to our bikes and continued, the tracks in the parks are not good at all so be on the motorcycle you have to pay attention on the tracks a lot while looking around to see animals.

Views Wild Elephants

well just after riding few minutes Ranger pointed on his left side and we all slow down to see an elephant about 15 meters away from the road behind the bush, then Ranger pointed further to see the elephant was not alone, there were about 10 elephant from distance from each other but in the same area, well we stopped took some pics and after few moments ranger said we have to rush and try to get to the area where normally big cats found because the lions dont like sun much and go hiding in the bushes and we might not see them if we delay , all these other animals we will stop on our ways back which made sense.

Proceed to lion territory and other animals

so we continued and headed towards that territory of lions, there have been so many sharp turn on this track but lukily after 6km all the sharp turn were finished and the track brought us to a view point where you could see miles away from your naked eyes, we heading further inside the park, the track started becoming difficult, some much gravel on the tracks, potholes and sand, we reached in a small valley to see around thousands of antelopes and giraffes in a very small area, its like there was a meeting going on and all the animals have gathered here but Joseph said this is just a part of the park that animal gathering like this are everywhere in the park.

we took a minute off from riding and enjoy the nature, took some pics and decided to continue, Joseph has warned everyone that from now the tracks have lots of sand so we have to be very careful and pay attention at the tracks as we make our way to Delta point where the Nile river Divides, one section goes to Lake Albert and another one heads to Sudan as it makes its way to Egypt, as we continued with around 20kmph speed, Jerry`s father was the first one to drop the bike in deep sand, we all stopped and pick him up and made sure he is fine and we continued, after around 5km we stopped as Joseph said we are in the lions territory so keep your eyes open, luckily now the sandy part of the track had finished so the track became bit smoother.

Excitement Views of Lion’s Family

we started riding and Jerry spotted some roofs of the cars parked ahead and he pointed that so the Joseph said that is where we are heading, after about 4mins we arrived at the place and saw around 20 tourist cars were parked there and all the tourist were on the roof of their cars and looking on the left side in one direction, it didnt take a minute for Joseph to realized whats going on! yes, there we were, around 15meters away from a pride of Lions, since the grass was toll and we could not see clear ahead so the same tourist who met us at the ferry crossing asked us to come on the roof of his car and see what he has been watching, oh boy, there were 4 Lioness and about 8 cabs just few meters away from the track, it was thrilling to watch that, yes we did take lots of pics and few minutes taking break from riding in the wilderness and enjoy the nature, most of the time the pride was laying around under the shades, there was not much moments going on then we were told by Joseph that they are just resting as he pointed at the antelope carcass which was laying around few meter away from the bush, the pride has hunted last night and finished eating.

Views of Antelopes Grazing

so after few minutes we continued towards delta point, just riding few 100meter away from lions we saw an open area which was covered with small green grass and around 10,000 antelopes grazing around this area, we can clearly see why the grass is shorted in this place and why there are lots of antelopes around, because the water is near and it will be easy for the antelopes to graze here and drink water, our camera were rolling and stop to take lots of pics around this area.

Views of Hippos , Buffalos and Elephant

after a further short ride we arrived at the Delta Point to see hippos are hiding in the water and you can clearly see hippos coming out of water every after few seconds to hear the weird sound of BMW R1200GSA motorcycles which clearly is unique to them, we parked our bikes and started walking around the delta point as Joseph explain us the areas around the Delta point, we could clearly see Buffalos standing few meters away from us and wondering what on earth these things(BMW motorcycles) are, there is a clean toilet constructed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority on Delta point for tourist to stop by and freshen up, so we did, after 20mins of relaxing and walking around we see a herd of elephant making their way to the banks, probably to drink water, we stood watch as they keep coming closer, we realized there are about 80-100 elephants in this herd which were about 50meter away from us, so we stood and watch, we see that one of the biggest elephant enters the water and drinks and other elephants stood away from the water and waits for something then Joseph explained that its the Alpha Male in the herd and he is not alone there are other alpha males which will enter the water soon, and that exactly what happened, we saw around 6 elephants enter the water one after other and made like a circle where all babies and other elephants come drink water and shower, they come spend few minutes in the water and then go away then other come in and enjoy the water while the other big elephants didnt leave the water and stood in the water all along, it was something very amusing to see how they protect their families from predators.

well the sun was coming out faster and heat was becoming very uncomfortable so we decided to head back using a different track, as we head back we saw lots and lots of animals, Giraffes, Elephants, Antelopes, Buffalos, warthogs, hippos, lots of different type of birds and yes we did see the leopard briefly on our way back but as soon as we saw it jumped off the tree and went inside the thick bush, so we could not get a pic or watch him closely, all in all it was just a very unique and excited experience to ride a motorcycle in the national park and see all these animals very closely while on the motorcycle.

Return Back to Camping Site for our lunch

its 11:00am now and everyone is tired of riding so we decided to go bit faster to avoid the heat and get to ferry crossing early, the ferry leaves at exactly Midday, we made it right on time at the ferry crossing and put our bikes back on the ferry to cross the river and head to our camping site, after arriving at the camp site, we parted ways with Joseph who had been an amazing guide and gave us lots of information about the park and its wildlife and a very funny guy as well kept us entertained throughout our ride, now its time for lunch as we are all really hungry, our guide suggested as the lunch is being prepared how about everyone go and take a cold shower and freshen up, which was a really good idea so we did, by the time we all came back from shower our lunch was right on the table waiting for us, a cheese burger and fries, nice cold beer, everything has been perfect so far, well the day is not not over yet.

Boat Trip at Murchison Falls

after the Lunch our guide brought us tickets for boat trip to the bottom of Murchison Falls and told us the trip starts at 2:00pm and ends at 5:30pm, we finished our lunch and had one more beer since we are not going to ride today so its fine to have few beers then the guide told us dont worry there are plenty of beers at the boat, we head out to boat trip, we were welcome by the guide at the boat who informed us the history of the park and the animals who live in the park and told us that expect to see lots of hippos and crocodiles in this short period of time, the boat started at 2:00pm and we were not alone in the boat as there were other tourist who also joined us on the boat, as soon as the boat leaves we stop saw a herd of elephants who were drinking water on the other side of the river and yes sure we saw countless hippos and crocodiles on the way as we head to bottom of the Murchison Falls, we saw giraffes, elephants and other wildlife on the way but no lions or leopard, the guide at the boat say its very rare to see the big cats coming to drink water this side of the park but they do come, after 1:30hr drive on the boat and here we are, watching the giant Murchison Falls, the boat could not go close to the water falls as the water current was too strong, so we decided to stop about 100meters away from the falls and watch the falls as the guide told us this is one of the strongest water falls in the world, before we head back to our lodge, the boat trip was awesome, we met other tourist and chat with them about their morning game drive, almost everyone said they saw our group as they could not miss to notice the Big BMW Motorcycles riding around in the wilderness of Uganda, everyone started talking about what kind of animals they saw in the morning game drive, so now everyone realized that its never a sure deal that you will get to see all the animals in the park on a game drive, its all about the luck and timing, some tourist could not even see lions or leopard or even elephant because by the time they left for game drive it was too late and most of the animals had gone hiding looking for shades, so we share few beers with other tourist on the boat as we arrived at the landing site, we said goodbye to everyone and headed back to our lodge, where the campfire was waiting for us, took few more beers and come to sit around the campfire to watch the African sunset in the wilderness of Uganda, few minutes later we were called out that our dinner is ready to serve, we ate dinner and come back to sit around the campfire again, there were other tourist as well sitting around the fire who talked about how they saw us riding around in the park today and they thought it was very cool to do so as sitting in the car become lot boring at times, we are really glad that we choose Motorcycle Adventure Uganda for this trip, everything has been very well organized and their activities are spot on, so far its a 5star from us to this team, its just a second day now as we already think we have seen so much and done so much, now we are going to chat about what we have done today and how we did it, who dropped the bike, make fun, joke and laugh about the things we have done so far,

Good night as tomorrow`s Adventure awaits us!