It was hard to drag ourselves away from the wonderful shoebill, both metaphorically and physically; having done such an amazing job getting us up close to the bird we were fairly well wedged in and it took a lot of shoving and dragging by the boat guys to get us back into the wider/deeper channels.
A few random shots as we headed back to meet Gerald with the truck.
Black Kite
Long-tailed Cormorant
Blue-Breasted Bee-eater quite well camouflaged amongst the papyrus.
Being so low in the boats at times I was shooting straight into the sky so I decided to make a minimalist set.
Long-toed Lapwing.
We then headed for lunch at the small town of Kayawbe which is on the equator. The café we stopped at also sold general tourist merchandise so I took a picture of this gorilla painting just in case we don't get to see the real thing.
These magnificent horns belonged to Ankole-Watusi cattle which are widely farmed in this region so I'm hoping we'll get to see some live ones.
Of course we all had the obligatory Equator photos taken.
These lads were looking at some of the educational matter in the town.
The next lot of photos are rather poor quality snaps taken from the vehicle.
It's amazing what a small motorbike can carry.
There are quite a lot of police road blocks where random vehicles are pulled over for checking - mostly to make sure they aren't dangerously overloaded. These rather crude spikes make sure everyone stops!
Anywhere near a town or village there were roadside stalls selling vegetables of various kinds,
I wonder how you decide which stall to buy from, there are so many side by side and the produce looks equally good.
I think this is a Long-crested Eagle, I rather like the silhouette against the white clouds.
Speckled Mousebird
We've yet to identify this scruffy individual.
I took this photo because I thought it funny that the cow was travelling on the back of a tuk tuk but actually even though their faces are completely out of focus they are so representative of the lovely, smiling, friendly people we were to encounter throughout the trip.
Woodland Kingfisher with very annoying branch.
Water Thick-knee
An Ankole cow looking for some grazing along the roadside.
White-browed Coucal
Olive Baboon - how come there's so often Elephant dung in my pictures despite us not seeing any?
Village Weaver in flight.
Vervet Monkey m. obviously!
My fascination with their bright blue balls continues.
We arrived at Rwakobo Rock Lodge late afternoon and it looks to be a fabulous place, set on a massive granite outcrop just beside Lake Mburo National Park. The accommodation is in individual cottages dotted around the hill taking advantage of rocky ledges and secluded corners and unfortunately for us we got allocated one just about as far away from the main areas as possible and a good 8 min uphill walk (in fairness Olly had asked in advance if we had any preferences but of course we weren't to know the layout of the place). I felt very sorry for the porters who had to carry our luggage. Our "cottage" is a huge 2 storey, 2 bedroomed, 2 bathroom house, complete with kitchen and large living room.
Seeing the cattle horns on the side I couldn't resist picking them up. From the way the cattle walk with their heads almost touching the ground I'd assumed they were very heavy but in fact they're as light as a feather - like balsa wood.
The staff here are once again lovely and nothing is too much trouble. The wine is very reasonably priced and dinner was lovely; a delicious spicy soup followed by a choice of 3 mains. I got chatting with an Australian family who'd arrived from Murchison Falls NP, the last stop on our trip. We spent a lovely 10 minutes comparing details and as she too was rather underwhelmed by the low level of game here and was interested in safaring in Kenya and Botswana I passed on Michele at Safari Consultants details as she deals with international clients too.
After dinner Olly sat down with Frederick and the other Ian to show them some editing techniques in Lightroom. As I use Photoshop I wasn't too interested and decided I'd rather sit with Ian, enjoy the wine and reflect on the superb day we'd just had.