To catch me a Colobus. (Thanks Gerry). Three countries, six parks and twenty eight days reaching places the other Guides don’t reach.

[Galana]

I finished my last report about the land beyond the Serengeti with these words:-

 

“I need to go back to explore Birugi-chato and other new parks in that area more closely.”

And

“We barely got into this NP as our plans were disrupted by the cancelled flight. However author Phillip Briggs was there last year and wrote well of it. It is certainly a very beautiful area scenically with plans for a tented camp and chalets well advanced. There are two other new NPs further north towards Ugandan border that I have my eye on also.”

 

And so! Why not? There was a gap in my Calendar for October and Lady G hinted again that I might as well go while the going was good. My new best friend at Rwandair, who came to our rescue when we missed our connection, in February was happy to get my ticket back to KGL in the leg room seat I lost last time, Emmy was free to drive so we were good to go.

 

My rough itinerary has already been posted under plans for 2024.

 

 

Land KGL, meet Emmy, drive to Rusomo and enter Tanzania. About ten days in that area before crossing into Uganda, where I had not been since Covid, to indulge in a nostalgic return to some of my favourite places. Lake Mburo, Mweya in QENP (my favourite Classic Tent please! That’s right, the one with the lions on the lawn!) before ending up at Emmy’s own Broadbill Forest Camp in Bwindi.

 I had been in this area twice previously. In February 2024 which gave rise to the present visit and several years earlier when I scored my best ever views of the enigmatic Papyrus Gonolek and visited Minziro Forest Reserve and initially thought this was a ruined Norman Castle only tourch discover it was a ruin of a church bombed by Idi Amin’s forces during his spat with Nyerere. As a result of this attack Tanzanian Forces struck back hard and sacked the town of Mbarara.

It is quieter now.

I still travel with my Minox binoculars and a Nikon P1000 bridge camera. My simple Lenovo Netbook was having capacity problems due to Windows 10 taking up most of the Memory, so it has been replaced with a smaller, in size, but bigger in memory, Fusion5 Tablet for backing up documents and photographs. My trail cameras will possibly be useful this trip so they are coming along despite them give X-Ray problems in Security at the airport. I travel light so, apart from valuables in a small carry on case, all my needs go in a normal duffle weighing 11.5Kg. Well below the limits of the most stingy airline. And believe me Loganair ARE stingy.

The journey out was long but uneventful and after a long layover in London’s Heathrow I boarded Rwandair’s Airbus 330 for the non stop flight to Kigali and landed on time and was met by a happy Emmy. We promptly set off for the Tanzanian Border which we passed without problems and entered TZ with no firm bookings for accommodations for our first ten nights.

I am going to end here but can’t resist a teaser photo to inspire @pedro maia

 

 

More to follow.

[pedro maia]

This is just a clickbait, I bet this isn’t go to be about bed linnen…

[Dave Williams]

A bed on the floor ..... we had a snake in our chalet in Kruger NP.It was hiding under a suitcase but I'm sure a mattress would have had more appeal!!

[michael-ibk]

Good to hear your flights went more smoothly this time. Enjoy Fred, looking forward to read about this trip.

[Atravelynn]

Looks like we'll be white-knuckling another adventure with you!