Queen Elizabeth National Park is one of the best safari parks to visit if you are interested in enjoying amazing game drives and boat cruises while on safari in Uganda. Whether you are planning to stay 1 – 3 nights on your Uganda safari, an adventure through this park takes you back to nature, get you close to the park’s wildlife and you will enjoy the tour.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is one of the best parks to see wildlife in Uganda, the Pearl of Africa. From the common sightings to unique wild animals that you will not easily find elsewhere in Africa there are great opportunities for wildlife viewing in this park than in any other park in Uganda. The park is host to tree climbing lions within the Ishasha Sector, that climb high the fig trees within this sector. It is not easy to find these animals elsewhere in the world except in Tanzania. Watching these lions high in the tree branches, is an amazing, heart beating experience, though scaring, you will love it. Therefore while creating your tour itinerary, don’t forget to include a game drive through the Southern parts of the park (Ishasha), and if you are lucky or give it enough time, you will find the famous “tree climbing lions”. Many tourists have been lucky enough to see even lionesses and their cubs in the same big fig trees of the Ishasha Sector.
The Ugandan Kob, a beautiful antelope, that is endemic to the region is another unique wild animal that you will find in this park. Elephants, buffaloes, warthogs, hippos, crocodiles, and different species of antelopes are other amazing anaimals that you will see on a wildlife safari in Queen Elizabeth national park.
Boat Cruises
Boat cruises offer a great way to cool down while adventuring along African lakes and rivers. On a trip through Queen Elizabeth National Park, you will be thrilled by a 2 hours boat drive on the Kazinga channel where a load of mammals, birds and crocodiles will be spotted. The Kazinga channel is a water body that connects Lake Albert to Lake George, and is an amazing hotspot where thousands of hippos, birds and other wildlife animals either stay or come for a drink. A boat ride is taken during the afternoon hours and this will give you the chance to see a variety of wildlife that come for a drink during the hot sunny day.
On the downsides of the park, if you stay in Mweya lodge, your safari can be rather short. Most game drives start from Mweya and it will take about 45 minutes twice to get and come-back from the place (Kasenyi) where the density of games is the best. On the paper Mweya lodge is in the park but in reality it looks like that some lodges that are not in the park, are closer to where the action is.
Why Visit Queen Elizabeth National Park
Compared to other parks in East Africa, Ugandan game parks are not crowded. This is the same with Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the well conserved parks with well developed tracks for game viewing.
You can spend less days and explore much of the sectors of the park this a trip of 2 days and more is enough to explore the park. However, you will realize this is well enough is this area (I am usually never fed up with safari otherwise).
Developing More Tracks
I understand the idea is to preserve the wildlife but not enough tracks when it is not possible to go even 50meters off track to see something interesting, it makes sometimes the experience a bit “mild”. So maybe a better balance has to be reached in this area (having in mind that wildlife conservation is what matter most but also that well frequented parks can lead to stop poaching by involving more the local people in tourism and preservation of the parks).