4 Day Queen Elizabeth Safari

An early pickup, because this is the long day and we would rather be out of Kampala before the traffic builds. The road runs west through Mpigi and Masaka, and about two hours out we stop at the Equator monument at Kayabwe, where you can stand in both hemispheres, watch the water demonstration and buy coffee. Lunch en route, then on through Mbarara and Bushenyi with the country opening out into tea and banana. Total driving time is seven to eight hours, which is the honest figure rather than the optimistic one, and it is why we offer the alternative below. Queen Elizabeth covers roughly 1,978 square kilometres and was named after Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. We reach the park in the late afternoon with time for an evening game drive on the way to your lodge, when buffalo, elephant and Uganda kob are moving. Dinner on the Mweya peninsula with the channel below you.

Out at six for the Kasenyi plains, open grassland dotted with candelabra euphorbia and the best lion ground in the park. Huge concentrations of Uganda kob, the national animal, graze here, and the lions follow them, so this is where most sightings happen. Elephant, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog and giant forest hog fill out the morning, with hyena often still active early. Back for lunch and a rest through the heat, then the afternoon on the water. The Kazinga Channel runs about 32 kilometres between Lake George and Lake Edward and concentrates wildlife along its banks in a way no game drive matches. The two hour cruise takes you past one of the densest hippo populations in Africa, Nile crocodiles hauled out on the mud, elephant and buffalo coming down to drink, and waterbirds packed along the shoreline in numbers that surprise people. Afternoon departures beat morning ones for both animals and light.

South today, into the remote Ishasha sector, and worth knowing what you are driving for. Lions here habitually climb trees and drape themselves along the branches of large fig and acacia through the heat of the day, behaviour seen regularly in only a handful of places on earth. The males carry dark manes, which adds to it. Nobody can promise you one, since it depends on where the prides are that week, and our guides who work the sector will tell you the odds are decent rather than certain. Ishasha itself is quiet open country along the Ishasha River, with topi that are scarce elsewhere in the park, plus elephant, buffalo and good general game. We spend the day working the fig trees and the river circuits, take a picnic lunch out with us, and return north in the late afternoon. Queen Elizabeth holds around 95 mammal species and over 600 birds, the longest bird list in Uganda.

One last morning, and the most underrated half day in the park. The explosion crater drive climbs from the Kazinga plains into a field of steep sided volcanic craters, some holding lakes and some dry and grazed by buffalo and elephant, with the best views in the park back over Lake Edward and towards the Rwenzori range. Flamingos gather on some of the crater lakes when conditions suit. We stop at Katwe salt lake, worked by hand for salt since long before the park existed, where villagers still harvest from pans standing in brine, and a community guide explains the process and the trade that ran from here across the region for centuries. It is hard work to watch and the guides are candid about the conditions. Then the drive east to Entebbe, arriving in the evening. For anyone short of time we can fly you out from Mweya or Kasese instead.