Before we had officially entered the park we saw zebra, casually grazing on the side of the road along side big horned cattle. Even the cattle were fun to observe, being so unusual from our experience.
Lake Mburo is one of only three locations in Uganda where you can see zebra, and certainly the only park this far south.
It was already exciting, because zebra are one of those animals that immidiately pull you into Africa as though you could be no where else. And to see animals on the side of the road before we had really entered what could be deemed ‘their territory’ was even more promising.
They were Burchell’s zebra, and this is the only park in the rift region where they live. Each of their crisp stripes looked as though they had been carefully painted in turn.
Lake Mburo is also the only place in Uganda we would see Eland and Impala – both at opposite ends of the antelope size scale with the Eland being the largest species of antelope there is.
There is something beautiful about Impala. Their shiny coat and delicate features.
On one of my first safaris I was told ‘you can always tell which is the most popular impala, because they will have the most shiny coat. The others will line up to groom them’. Made me sad to see a not so shiny one after that!
I used to always recommend people only spend a night at Lake Mburo, as a stop over for the ‘main event’ of gorilla tracking. I think it was this underestimation that surprised me so much. Changed my opinion entirely being there in person.
Even though we travelled in the wet season (late November, early December) we saw an abundance of zebra, waterbuck and impala.
Amoung other other sightings there were bushbuck, topi, ververt monkeys, warthog, bush squirrel, bush rabbits, buffalo and a very fast dik dik and mongoose we caught unawares.
One of the things I love about Uganda, which was apparent right from getting off the plane in the airport, is there is always something to see.
This place is a birders paradise, with something around every corner. Fish eagle in one tree, snake eagle in the next, as well as the more frequent glossy cape starlings, guinea foul, doves, black headed gonolek, hornbills and more.
We weren’t even on a real game drive – we were simply on our way to our lodge.
After my first safari experience, in the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve in South Africa, I am still more excited to see things we ‘happen’ across than things you go ‘hunting’ for with walkie talkies and teams of trackers. It somehow makes the whole experience more real when you stumble across something.
Wonderful photos!
Thanks, wildlife pics are our favourite so Africa is one of the best places for us to take advantage of that….otherwise its just us sneaking up on the guinea pigs (not quite so exciting!)
Great Photos.. All the while I read this, I felt like I was there, traveling along with the post
Thank you
gets better the further into the country we go
What amazing photographs. And let’s face it; “big-horned” is a drastic understatement!
Lmao I guess you are right – would probably think twice before walking the dogs through a field of them
Wow. Seriously…WOW. These shots are truly spectacular…what an adventure!
Thanks
they get better…all depends on luck with wildlife. We were VERY lucky with the gorillas, they turned up at our lodge after we had tracked them – we were the only ones there! 
awesome photos! u really have the guts for taking the picture for the wild hogs
Thank you
Warthogs I can handle – show me a baboon and I freak out! At least a warthog runs off, tail in the air. A baboon will try and get in your room/car/food!
I’m happier stopping to take pics of elephants and lions than baboons
Beautiful pictures..
I feel like i was there with you.. 
Thank you, just the start of this journey – much more to come
Wow these pictures are beautiful
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beautiful!
Oh! Congrats on becoming Freshly Pressed!!!
Saw your post on home page just noww.. Congrats once again.
Omg? Really?! WOW! I am so excited!! Seriously! Thanks
Beautiful! I lived in Uganda for ten weeks this summer and i absolutely adored every minute spent in such a wonderful place. Glad to see you shared in such beauty!
Lucky you! My fave African country so far, and so strange that not that many people seem to know it yet.
Did you get to see much of the country?
I did! I was living in the Karamoja region, but i spent a great deal of time in Kampala, Gulu, Lira, and at Murchison Falls. Uganda is the best
Really enjoyed Murchison, I spotted a leopard before our UWA guide, driver and G so I felt really smug! It was a small victory but I’ll take what I can get!
Wow!!! So much to see…
You truly have a wonderful gift in connecting with the animal kingdom.
Incredible journey in photos and words. Thank you.
I have visited Lake Mburo two years ago. What struck me the most was the serenity. It’s a quiet park, not many tourist around. Lake Mburo has it all: zebra’s, hippo’s, birds, monkeys etc. It’s a whole new world inside Uganda. You are right in stating that it is a wonderful experience to just run into beautiful spectacles, rather than search for them!
Couldn’t agree more – serenity sums it up perfectly, especially on our walking safari (the first one I did in Africa).
We were lucky enough to hardly see another tourist the whole time (besides when you get on a boat or track gorillas but that’s only fair really!).
Love it when you don’t have to share!
So natural!!! Great pictures!!
*sigh* Africa, I miss You!
Thanks for sharing these beautiful pictures.
Know that feeling my friend! Gets under your skin!
Beautiful is an understatement! I am so jealous of the wildlife you have gotten to experience through your travels!
Thank you
sure we all suffer from safari envy – I even get it when I’m there and we tell stories at night with others who were out on the same day!
Thanks for sharing the wonderful moment you captured. Besides, I like your blog title.
Nice photos. Africa is a nice place to visit, but deep down, I’m glad God saw fit to bring a distant ancestor over here from there so that I would be born and raised here rather than there. And, yes, it was God’s doing. Connie (A black person glad not be in Africa)
http://7thandvine.wordpress.com/
Can see your point, but I hope to live out there at some point hopefully – for all it’s lacking there is so much more that it has to give in other ways
I can see your point, too. Connie
wonderful animals, beautiful photos..
Really cool photos! It even looks like some of those animals were posing for you..pretty neat!
If you stick with me we have a picture taken later where a Ugandan Kob actually gives us a goofy cheesy grin
I think pretty much all animals have character and charisma, just being quick enough to catch any of it
Awesome post! I never made it to Uganda (only Kenya and Tanzania). Now I must go!
Courtney Mara
http://CourtneyMara.com
I was about the opposite – really rushed work trip round Kenya and Tanzania but we got to slow down and enjoy Uganda
Oh wow! Going on a safari in Africa is on my bucket list and you’ve reminded me why I’ve always wanted to do it. I bet the photos just don’t do justice to the experience of getting to see all of those animals up close in front of you
Totally worth it! This trip was our late honeymoon and it had been on the wish list for years! We spent 16 days in 8 different wildlife areas spotting lion, leopard, buffalo, hippo (my fave weirdly!), gorilla, chimpanze, elephant, hyena, crocs and so much more. We ended the trip walking with rhino which was both terrifying and amazing at the same time!
I would recommend a Uganda safari to anyone….whether they want to go or not!
WOW that’s amazing. How did you get set up with this particular safari?
I used to be a specialist African Travel consultant so I would put together tailor made trip for other people as standard.
I called in EVERY favour I had for this trip and even then it’s left us skint for a long time – but I would never have changed it for the world!
I would always suggest, if you are on a budget, looking into one of the cheaper group trips with a company like Acacia Africa or similar. It’s a slightly different experience (being in a larger vehicle for travelling, being in a group so not having as much say in the itinerary/game viewing) but great for seeing the country for less.
If you have money to burn I would recommend Wild Frontiers Uganda or Volcanoes Safaris hands down for a top luxury experience. They would put together a full private trip for you but it would blow most peoples minds for price. I was lucky to stay in a couple of both of their lodges/camps and it’s a really eco experience with the luxury of top service.
Thanks for these photos of Mburo – brought back some good memories! Looks like you saw quite a lot!
I still don’t know how the camp used to produce such fantastic food given the equipment they had!
Know what you mean! We stayed at Lake Mburo Tented Camp so the options would not be quite so high up as Mihingo but it was still top notch 4 course dinners. I remember seeing the vegetable garden at Tortilis Camp in Kenya where they had problems keeping a certain elephant from sneaking in to eat all the crops, so I have no clue how they keep it up in other places.
stayrd there many times! Loved the way they filled buckets of water for the shower too!
I agree, became a fan of the safari shower. Thought I would run out as I was washing my hair but it was ok!
I was just looking back at Ishasha Wilderness Camp which was one of my favourites and see they have refurbished with normal showers, bigger tents, flush toilets…. I’m actually a little sad, because I feel it would take away from the magic the place had as somewhere purely natural before. If the tents were good enough for Stephen Fry then they should be good enough for everyone else!
I don’t know Ishasha… We used to go to Jacana Lodge in Queen Elizabeth Park quite a bit – and up to Murchison Falls when we could.
I didn’t visit Jacana (it looked good enough on it’s website to recommend and already had good reviews) but we drove past it visiting other lodges.
I loved Murchison – we had always been told at work to shy away from recommending it because of all the LRA problems there…. I visited it and Semiliki and had no trouble at all…. and with no talk of any recent trouble back in 2010 either! Just goes to show if you want to plan a trip with someone it bloody helps if they have been to where they are sending you!
Stopped off to see Aubrey @ Fort Portal too (or is it Port Fortal – I’ve said it both ways so often I don’t know any more!!) (Ndali Lodge)
See, we were a bit disappointed with Semiliki. We drove so long (4 hours) to get there from our lodge in Kibale (quite close to Ndali actually) and when we got there we didn’t really see anything…. there were hardly any safari tracks open thanks to poaching and our UWA guide seemed so negative about the whole place (which doesn’t make you feel any better when you have driven for hours to simply drive through the bush). Enjoyed our walk to the hot springs though.
We decided after half a day there to head up to Murchison early, and I’m glad we did. Maybe in the future it will get back what it once had? Or maybe we were just really unlucky?
That road down to Semiliki though – aye!?!?! Quite something.
We were there in 2004, so thinks could well’ve changed.
Kibale eh!?! You did the whole thing! Did you fly up to Kidepo too?
Fair play – the scenery is beautiful. Shame it was being invaded by Chinese developers when we were there building a new commercial road
Strange, you would think the wildlife would get better in 6 years, following the pattern of the rest of the country.
We spent 16 days looping round from Entebbe to Lake Mburo to Bwindi to Ishasha to Mweya (and Kyambura) to Kibale to Semiliki to Murchison to Ziwa wildlife sanctuary back to Entebbe.
We did a lot, drove a lot, broke down a bit and enjoyed it all really
I’ve heard the far north is stunning – maybe on a return visit!
We didn’t get up North either.
On one occasion we were at Mburo, we heard that the local farmers had killed a leopard.
Apparently they pose a threat to their cattle. I suppose it’s understandable on one level, but talk about short-sighted!
I was reading about a lion killed near Bwindi recently because a community was losing livestock, and wasn’t benefitting from tourism yet.
It was the same with a black back gorilla accidentally killed on a poaching mission for small antelope.
Can see both sides of the story, but yes it is really sad in the big scheme of things.
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like this blog.
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really nice pictures. they helped immensely in making the whole experience very real. My pick is the one with the zebras. very cool shot
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Zebra have such a funky pattern (and a group of them is referred to as a dazzle which is also quite fab!). I have some closer shots from time in Kenya and Tanzania but these were special because it was the first large wild animal we came across in Uganda, and we got to see them as we were on walking safari the following morning, which was such a serene way to spot wildlife.
I have recently returned from Uganda. I was lucky enough to get to spend one night at the Buhoma lodge. What an amazing place. The staff took excellent care of us while we were there. The view, amazing. The horseback safari was great fun. I wish I would have had more time to experience more of what this lodge offered. I would fly back to Africa just to spend more time here.
I didn’t get told too much about the activities offered here when I visited, love the idea of being on horseback in Bwindi though!
Did the gorillas visit you at the lodge? They often roam around the car park at Buhoma…. we were told a silverback took a dislike to a gorilla mural they have there one day! Rather amusing!
It struck me as a set of luxury tree houses, fancy but fun
Awesome! Priceless pics! Just one question, what is the make of your camera?
sorry, meant what is the model of your camera?
G uses a canon 50D and I got to play with the 400D on this trip
Reblogged this on reinaldobanh and commented:
ENJOY.
beautiful pictures, I like animals on African savannah too
Thank you, Lake Mburo isn’t the sort of park you would really class as ‘typical’ savanna, the bush is much more dense than that for the most part so it’s home to species you wouldn’t necessarily find in open grassland
africa rock for animal…nice photography and here one thing thing showm that animal live there very friendly its so cool
Beautiful and inspiring stuff!
Nagyon jó volt ott lenni, élmény volt veled utazni! Én soha nem jutok el erre a gyönyörű földrészre. Nekem csak pici háziállataim vannak, imádom én is az állatokat!
Üdvözlettel Magyarországról Terike
http://szanter.blogspot.com/
I have actually been to Uganda and find that your photos are an excellent capture of the way it feels to be there. Great photos. Thank you so much for sharing of yourself in your blogging. It is fantastic.
Thank you, how long were you out there? what did you get up to?
Beautiful, crisp images.. Sounds like an amazing place to visit!
I enjoyed your pictures. I lived in Kenya (Kitale) for 5 months last year and I found East Africa to be an amazing place. I was able to go on Safari to Masai Mara and I got some great shots of wildlife.
Awesome wild photos…..I t is really great work to take wild photos..
It is looking good.
Amazing, marvellous, wonderfull, what a creation…….
beautiful colours. I love nature shots. You just can;t go wrong. Thanks for the post
Nice information. Would love to share with my friends
wow that picture of the zebra is so awesome. the colors are so vivid. love it. super jealous.
I like the cattle and zebra images. It is great to see different and exotic locations.
much beautiful images of bush buck, topi, ververt monkeys, warthog i never saw . i want to see in zoo.I do enjoy animals I think that if God had a favorite animal creation, it would have to be the animals…with all its many lovely colors bestowed upon it.
Hi there! Someone in my Facebook group shared this site with us so I came to take a look.
I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers!
Wonderful blog, posts and excellent design.
Why thank you, always great to have new people come across WordPress…. There is SO much here
luar biasa beautiful
amongst all the great shots – I think I loved the long-horned cows the best.
Growing up, I loved going to the zoo. I can’t imagine how amazing it would be to actually see and photograph these amazing animals in their own backyard. Excellent post and photos!
I still can spend hours at the zoo
we’ve even camped overnight there on a couple of ‘roar and snore’ evenings – I was so excited!
Woken up by gibbons howling, lions roaring, chimps screaming at each other… And a disgruntled donkey (not so exotic but very loud!)
great photos……..
These pictures are amazing! I’ve always wanted to go on a safari. I love how you can almost tell the animals character from the picture
a picture more beautiful than the other. As God was wonderful.
Never thought a photo of cattle would grab my attention so, but it did. They are intriguing in an ineffable sort of way. Believe it or not, it’s my favorite of all your wonderful animal shots.
Couple of people have said that now – think the cattle were so pleased of the attention they were just bigger posers than the rest
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Interesting!
Love the picture of the cattle, they are so cute!
I hope in this life will have the opportunity to take photos in a place like that once.
The pictures of the Lake Mburo are excellent. I enjoyed the pictures. I liked the pictures of the urchell’s zebra. Excellent photographs.
Wow, so green! I never think of Africa as being so green. Thanks!
Love your pictures… Very exciting
wow, great photographs, thanks for sharing.
TechSmartLife
ithink i will take one picture for my wallpaper….., if you allowed……,
Feel free. Don’t mind how they are used, but I would be obliged if people credit them if they are going to be used anywhere public.
Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your webpage? My blog site is in the exact same area of interest as yours and my visitors would definitely benefit from some of the information you present here. Please let me know if this okay with you. Thanks a lot!
Not at all, I’m still chuffed to be getting noticed full stop! I’ve been blogging for a year now and the attention I’ve received this week outnumbers all my viewings over the past year so I’m still on cloud nine! Appreciate you stopping by
Beautiful pictures and beautiful animals !! Must have been a fun trip !!
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Amazing!! Thanks for sharing
These are beautiful photos!
I am a WordPress photographer too!
Great job.
Awesome photography! I like the warthog a lot.
Thank you for sharing!
…following your blog…
Yeah, the hog was fun because he looked like he was in war paint! Of all the warthog I’ve come across the others never seemed to have markings this distinct – maybe I finally found a buch warthog!
Haw haw! Nice!
beautiful creatures! great shots. thanks for sharing.
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Stunning animal photographs. The zebras are my favorite photo.
Absolutely stunning photos! Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience!
So nice Lake Mburo !Thanks for sharing,it seems I am in front of those animals.Hope I can be there one day,i talked with my boss yesterday,Africa is the only place I look forward to travalling.
Spectacular photos! Made me want to switch you countries.
Holy cow…these are AMAZING photos! What an incredible experience of a lifetime!
That’s some wild trip!! Good work on the pictures..
Great photos!
Nature truly is intriguing!!! Wonderful pictures
nature, life…all so amaizing. Whatever biologist and scientist say teh knwo about nature life is still the biggest miracle of all. I heard a beautiful song yesterday “we breath in what trees breath out and it breathes in what we breath out”.. A perfect illustration of how the wold is: we are a piece of everything and everything is a piece of us.
Great post.
http://dressupforme.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/under-the-red-label-love/
Nice photographs!
The buffalo has huge horns over there!
Thanks, they are actually just the cattle there. The buffalo horns curl round and they are much bigger.
Wow, these pictures are amazing. Africa hasn’t been on my immediate list, but I think I need to put it there ASAP!
You should! I never knew I would love it so much until my first trip… then you get the Africa bug and you HAVE to keep going back!
wow… there are some very nice pics but for me the eagle’s pic was the best !
Fab pictures
Have you been to Marrakech?
Not yet, but it’s on my list! Friend’s of ours have driven around Morocco – don’t know if I would be that brave but I would love to visit. Have you?
Hehe – it’s on our list too! We were thinking about a quick trip, and I wondered if you knew any traditional/non flashy Riads in Marrakech.
Funnily enough we had to research a few but I didn’t find out enough to recommend. They do exist – that’s as good as I get with North African info
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Beautiful…come visit Uganda.
Outstanding writing. We’ve bookmarked it without a doubt.
Perfect site! How did you get that awesome layout?
That first pic is unbelievable: those horns look unreal!
Funny how a few normal old cows steal the limelight
My hubby has been very chuffed at all the feedback on his pics. They are generally all his unless I point out specifically otherwise… I am the terrible video taker!