If you’re planning to add Queen Elizabeth national park on your Uganda trip, you should better allocate two nights for this park alone if you want to enjoy it. This will give you a full day of exploring as you look for wildlife on the game drives and boat cruise. Queen Elizabeth is located in western Uganda 417 km from Kampala and it takes 6 – 7 hours drive. From Kampala, the Park can be accessed through two road directions, either through Mbarara-Masaka road, through Fort portal-Mubende road or by air, flying from Kajansi-near Kampala to Kasese airstrip . Though Queen Elizabeth national park is one of the most preferred national parks of Uganda, it is rarely visited as a sole attraction but taken on a relatively longer trip covering other attractions such as other wildlife parks, the primates, the Rwenzori mountains, the communities or the gorillas. On most trips, Queen Elizabeth is best explored in two nights three days alone or on a longer trip. If you want to explore the park, you will have to give it the same, two or more nights of your Uganda trip. Uganda being a small country and the park being connected on good roads from many places, you can arrive to this park from different locations of the country basing on your travel plan. For example most people arrive from Rwenzori mountains national park, Kibale forest national park, Murchison falls national park, Bwindi impenetrable national park, Mgahinga, semuliki, Lake Mburo, Kampala or even from Entebbe on the same arrival day. In this article, I have ignored your time at other destinations in Uganda focusing on your time at Queen Elizabeth national park and spending your holiday at the Elephant home. This is how you can plan the two nights – three days at this park.
On day one, you will arrive to the Elephant home. Depending on the starting point of today’s journey and the kind of activities you will be engaged in anywhere on your way, you will arrive at the campsite any time between 10:00am and 7:00pm. The check in time for the Elephant home is 10:00am but if they didn’t have any guests who spent a night before, you can check in any time earlier. Arrive to lunch or dinner. If you arrive early enough, you may choose to engage in some community or camp activities. These include a village walk, basket weaving workshop, traditional dance or a self-guided walk at the site looking for birds, butterflies, insects and some wildlife spoors in the forest at the site. For groups, we can set a campfire to sum up the evenings.
On day two, after an early cup of tea at 6:30am, you will set off to the park on your first game drive in the on the northern parts of the park along the Kasenyi track. This is the best time for opportunities to view the cats in action. Later, return for breakfast; in the afternoon, take a boat cruise on the Kazinga channel to see herds of Buffalo, Hippo and other animals at the edge of the channel as they cool off. It is a paradise of birds. Depending on the season European migrant birds like the terns and gulls congregate here in large flocks. You will return to dinner and overnight later in the late afternoon as you sport some game on your way back to the elephant home.
On day three, after an early breakfast, it is the best time to head to the next destination. Depending on your plan and direction, the next destination could be Bwindi, Lake Bunyonyi, Kibale forest national park Kampala or any other part of the country. From the experience, most people like to go either to Bunyonyi (257km) if they are going south or go to trek in the Rwenzori foothills (48km) at the Ruboni community camp on Nyakalengijo gate of Rwenzori mountains national park. Here you have options of one day community treks in the natural forest, trekking on the local hills (25000m) or trekking in the park from one to eight days.
You have several travel options that will lead you to or from the Elephant home as your base for exploring this park, is located on the main tourist route from north western to south western part of Uganda. You can use public transport or private transport. For private transport arrangement, the Elephant home can recommend a tour operator or you can contact any tour operator of your choice and they will easily give you a quote. On request the campsite can arrange private transport.
Please contact the Elephant home on info@theelephanthome.com for a quote covering anything ranging from transport, game drives, boat cruise, accommodation, meals, community activities or transportation.