Our itinerary said the rest of the group would be arriving late morning (they had an overnight flight on Kenyan Airlines) and would we please meet them at reception. So after a good night's sleep and another delicious breakfast we simply chilled out on our lovely balcony and watched the world go by once again.
We couldn't quite work out where this poor guy was taking his barrow loads of soil from/to but he was back and forth many times.
Bananas any one?
However given that their flight was due in at 09:05 and the airport is literally 10 mins away we figured they'd be much earlier than late morning. And were correct; around 10:30 we saw some suitcases appear followed by their owners and so headed down to say hello and introduce ourselves. The other 3 paying clients are Ian from Cambridgeshire and Frederick and Charmaine from Malta, along with our photography guide Oliver (Olly) and Ugandan driver/bird specialist Gerald. We then discovered that it's the hotel's policy to offer a "welcome drink" and as we hadn't had one yesterday we were also included. It was a wee bit early even for me so I asked if I could have mine (white wine, of course) at lunchtime and like everything else with this hotel it was not problem.
Everyone seems very nice; Charmaine doesn't take photographs either so Ian will have company. After a brief meeting planning for the rest of the day they headed off to their rooms for a short rest and we arranged to meet up at around 13:00 for lunch (from now on all meals are included - how nice!)
We wandered down to the beach bar to see what wildlife we could spot but it was considerably windier than yesterday and the millpond Lake Victoria was quite rough. Although it was still rather early, I gave in and ordered my welcome drink.
Suddenly the hotel owner came over to us and pointed to the water - apparently this is the largest monitor lizard in the lake, although he didn't say how big it was.
And this apparently is the original African Queen from the 1951 film of the same name starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. The hotel owner is on the restoration committee.
The others joined us in time for lunch and having seen the size of the portions yesterday I asked for just a salad, which strangely came laden with avocado (no mention on the menu) plus a cheese sandwich! Never mind it was delicious. We then headed off around 15:00 for the first activity, the nearby Botanical Gardens and en route stopped at Victoria Mall supermarket to buy some dried beans to fill our beanbags.
Botanical gardens are generally a bit of a let down for me as I love flowers and these gardens being a collection of all things botanical are so often just green. This was no exception plus it was a little run down, I guess the Ugandan Government have more important matters to invest in. There wasn't an enormous amount of wildlife to see but according to the itinerary it would be a good opportunity for us to get used to the bright equatorial light and shadowy under canopy that we'd have to deal with throughout of the tour. My cameras and I both struggled from the off!
Firstly a few Vervet monkeys which we've seen many times before. This first photo made me chuckle; although I haven't chopped off the end of this little one's tail it looks like he's chasing another one.
Shhhh, don't tell everyone!
These two birds are both species of Turaco, Ross's on the left and Great Blue on the right. Unfortunately the light was appalling and they were both high up in the trees but I'm including them on the basis I might not get better shots.
And this amazing looking thing is a Black-and-White-Casqued Hornbill.
And a Crowned Hornbill, I think, although the photo is so bad I can't accurately ID it.
Black and White Colobus or Guezera, except this one is definitely missing the end of the tail.
This is what the tail should look like, I love how the branch of the tree echoes the shape of the tail.
There were quite a few high up in the trees and they didn't like us hanging around. I love the way they can almost fly!
This beautiful bird is an Orange Weaver.
We'd just got down to the lake side when Olly realised he'd dropped his glasses somewhere, so a major panic ensued and we all searched around frantically with no success so Olly decided to retrace his steps before it got too dark.
Hamerkop
And then with its mate roosting high up for the night. Incidentally Hamerkops make absolutely massive nests and hopefully we'll see one this holiday.
I don't know what this lad had in the bag but it looked jolly heavy.
And finally a couple of plants and sadly I think I'm the only one interested in them. I knew straight off this was a Fireball Lily (Scadoxus multiflorus) as we've seen them before in Kenya.
And this I think is a Hippaestrum (Amaryllis) of some kind.
We slowly made our way back to the vehicle and finally caught up with Olly who hadn't managed to find his glasses. Shortly afterwards a chap came up to him holding the specs, Olly was delighted and after consulting with Gerald gave him US$20. Everyone was "wow, how amazing he found them" but being the cynic that I am, I think the guy saw them fall and picked them up immediately and simply waited for Olly to realise.
So first afternoon's photography: a bit disappointing all in all and I'm regretting not doing a bit more practise at home as it's been a long time since I did any wildlife. Hopefully things will improve.
Back at 2 Friends we had a delicious dinner and agreed that we'd let Olly do the daily check list on his own and just await the results at the end of the trip. Naturetrek trips have this tradition of going through the species list each day and marking off how many of each have been sighted. In India it went on for almost an hour as there were 4 groups out each time and quite frankly I'd rather be eating dinner and getting ready for the next day.
Oh and we have an early 06:00 start tomorrow.