Entebbe weekend

We decided to have a night in Entebbe.  This is the Lake Victoria town that hosts the Ugandan International Airport.  It was the seat of government in colonial times and is very leafy and still has many luxurious homes.  It is also home to a great birding spot - the Botanical Gardens.  We found a nice little B&B (Serene Guesthouse) and headed down Saturday morning.

The satnav wanted me to head into Kampala and down the main connecting road to Entebbe.  This is to be avoided of course for all the standard reasons you should never drive in Uganda.  I studied Google Earth and found that we could cut across country on gravel roads through villages and avoid 90% of the traffic snarl.  Apart from the heavy overnight rain which muddied many of the gravel roads it was easy and probably quicker than going through Kampala - 90 mins included a short period where we were lost and had to backtrack.  If we have visitors I would take this route to pick them up at the airport rather than traumatise them with the Kampala roads.

We checked into the B&B around noon and headed to the gardens.  These are quite large and slope down to the lake shore.  They must have been magnificent 50 years ago but are now suffering a lack of love and attention.  Some of the trees are spectacular in size and character.

Gnarly buttress.

Hamerkop nest (about 1m across).  Not sure if it is still in use.

Ancient strangler fig.

A walkway with trellis and creeper - how many years since it has been pruned? 

There have been over 300 bird species recorded here and some regularly reported species would be new to me.  Being a Saturday afternoon heading into the festive season the gardens were full of picnicking families and other groups.  It is apparently mandatory that any group has a huge speaker system powered by a portable generator.  The speakers are invariably turned up to 11 with full bass and distortion.  The music is either rap or repetitive bongo.






We were continually changing direction to avoid this noise but never really got away from it.  Despite this the birds were active and we saw 55 species in 2 hours.  Orange Weaver was new to me.  We saw a good range of bush, forest and wetland species but decided to pack it in and revisit at 0900 Sunday morning when the gate opened and hopefully before the crowds returned.

Black-headed Heron looking cool.

Western Yellow Wagtail recently arrived from Europe.

Wood Sandpiper

Black-headed Heron - bathing (not so cool looking)

The B&B was very nice and quiet with a lovely garden full of birds and monkeys.  For dinner we walked 10 mins to an Indian restaurant (called Faze 3) and had chicken or prawn curries with rice, nan bread and wine.  Breakfast was simple but tasty with fresh fruit, yoghurt, coffee toast and eggs.  We gave the manager a lift into Kampala and she told us how mistreated she and the other staff were by the owners  - so I guess we won't stay there next time!





Unfortunately it bucketed down in the morning so we headed into Kampala for supplies before going home.  We plan to revisit for a couple of nights in January for more birding and nice meals.