Uganda's white water was the main attraction, but Roy Bailey found much more to like about the country.
My good friend Gordy Rayner and his son Max were heading there in October to paddle the Nile before it became inundated by the new Bujagali dam. The Upper Nile where it drains from Lake Victoria is world-renowned for its big-volume class 4-5 whitewater.
Also our friends Cam and Kate McLeay were going to be leaving at Christmas after making Uganda their home for the past 10 years. It really was an unmissable opportunity, so we started looking into flights, costs, vaccinations and so on.
In late October, Kellie and I (well someone had to carry my kayak) were on our way.
Kate had arranged a shuttle to pick us up at Entebbe airport and take us out to the McLeay camp by the river, about a two-hour drive. I was hoping to get there in time for a quick paddle before dark but the Kampala traffic stymied that plan.
Kampala is a city of about 1.6 million people and I think all of them were out trying to go somewhere when we were trying to get through the city. It was well after dark when we arrived at Cam and Kate's, a permanent tented camp that they were establishing on a terrace overlooking the Nile.
Cam and Kate run Adrift, an adventure tourism company providing rafting, bungy-jumping, jet-boating and a range of accommodation all centered on the Nile River. They have been operating in Uganda since 1996, so we were in very good hands.
Gordy and Max had arrived a few days earlier so they were already full of exciting stories about the river and rapids and waves. All of that would have to wait, for the next morning we were going on safari.
We woke to a stunning view. Directly below us the huge Nile River snaked through a series of thickly forested islands. The channel we were looking down on contained a large waterfall called Kalagala Falls, below which fishermen were trolling the calmer water in dugout canoes.
On the first island, Cam and Kate have built Wildwaters Lodge - 10 chalets, each with its own private deck with outside bath overlooking the river. Then there's the main lodge building, with dining room, lounge and bar. It's all linked together by hundreds of metres of raised walkway, and provides a simply stunning perspective of the river.
The river was tantalisingly close, but we were busy loading all the gear we needed for safari into and on to Cam and Kate's two Toyota Landcruisers. We were heading to Murchison Falls National Park, a few hours' drive to the north.
The park is Uganda's largest conservation area at 3877sq km. It is bisected by the lower reaches of the Victoria Nile, where it drains into Lake Albert and then becomes the Albert Nile.
To enter the park there is an entrance fee of $US25 a day and a camping fee $US50 a day per person. With your camping fee you also get the services of a park ranger (and his AK47) for the duration of your stay.
As soon as we entered the park boundary we started seeing wildlife. Firstly a group of warthogs, then some baboons, lots of different birds, black and white colobus - beautifully marked monkeys. We crossed the Nile at Paara Ferry under the watchful eye of a family of hippos, moved on to the grasslands, and had a close encounter with a grumpy elephant. Here there were giraffe, hartebeest, bushbuck, African buffalo, the list goes on.
It was already dark when we got to our campsite under a stand of trees beside the river. We pitched our tents on top of big piles of elephant dung as there wasn't room to pitch them in between. I have to admit to not getting much sleep that night.
It seemed all that was wild in Africa was right outside our tent snorting, grunting and barking, and all that separated us from them was a very thin layer of nylon. It helped slightly that the ranger was sleeping with his gun in our tent. But then, shouldn't he be staying awake?
The next morning we all loaded into one truck and took our breakfast out to Delta Point, where the Nile enters Lake Albert, to eat. When in the park we travelled on top of the trucks on bench seats attached to the roof racks. This provided optimum viewing, and there was plenty to look at.
We were blown away by the sheer numbers of animals in the park. And we pretty much had them all to ourselves. During our four days in the park we probably saw only a dozen other vehicles out game-watching, which meant the animals were not too stressed. At times we could see hundreds of animals at a glance.
Thanks to Cam's experienced and keen eye we even saw a leopard sitting in the fork of a tree, and were able to get uncomfortably close for some great photos. This was a real treat as they are rarely seen, solitary animals.
On our way back to camp we passed a large herd of elephant, which seemed to me to be very close to our camp. I stopped worrying about them when we saw a lioness and two cubs resting under some bushes only about 50m from our tents.
We sat and watched each other for quite a while until we retreated to camp for some lunch. We had three other lion encounters during our stay. It had been quite an eventful trip, and it had been only our first morning. We still had three days to go.
Another highlight during our time in the park was taking the boat trip up to the base of the Murchison Falls. The boats leave from Paara Ferry and travel about 10km upriver to the falls. The river has one of highest densities of hippos anywhere. They live in their family groups, apart from the cast-off males that have been kicked out of home by the dominant male.
The river also has a large population of crocodiles, a dozen of which we saw tearing apart a dead hippo in the river. The falls are an impressive sight from the boat, but a short walk up to the top lets you really appreciate the staggering power with which the Nile crashes through the narrow gap in the escarpment, not to mention the deafening roar and voluminous spray associated with the phenomenon.
After leaving the park we spent a night at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Once thousands of rhinos roamed Uganda. Due to hunting, poaching and encroachment by humans, numbers plummeted. Then during civil unrest in the 1970s, rhinos were poached to extinction. In 2004, Rhino Fund Uganda established the Ziwa sanctuary to breed white and black rhinos.
Four white rhinos were introduced from a ranch in Kenya and two more white rhinos were gifted from Disney Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. This founder group of three males and three females soon settled in and all three females subsequently produced a calf, bringing the current total to nine.
The first calf born in Uganda for at least 28 years has been named Obama, so called because he has a Kenyan father and an American mother, and brings hope for the future.
After a great night's rest in one of the sanctuary's guesthouses, the McLeays left us to head back home, and we did a rhino tracking tour. The great thing about these tours is that you track the rhinos on foot, in the company of a ranger. The rhinos are under armed guard 24/7 so are very used to human company.
You can get incredibly close to these huge animals as they go about their daily routine of grazing and resting.
We arrived back at our river base at Murchison Falls that night, which was especially exciting for me as I would finally get to go kayaking on the Nile the next day.
First up we were going to paddle the top section of river starting at Jinja, the second-largest town in Uganda, back down to Murchison Falls. This is about 31km on the river, and is the main rafting section.
Jinja lies about 80km east of Kampala, overlooking the point where the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria.
The Nile is a huge river flowing at 700 cumecs to 1200 cumecs at its source.
It is also 28degC, a far cry from what we are used to paddling in Central Otago, where most of our rivers are fed by snowfields in the mountains.
My first river trip didn't disappoint with huge pumping rapids, exploding waves and some fantastic surfing waves and play spots.
The Nile is famous for its play waves, where the water is pushed upwards forming waves, usually with crashing tops that you can sit on and surf. It is just like surfing an ocean wave, except the wave stays in the same spot and is never-ending.
After negotiating rapids with names such as Donald Duck, Easy Rider, Bujagali Falls and Little Gunga, we passed the Bujagali dam site where they are building a dam. This was a sad moment as you knew that it meant a death sentence for the rapids that we had just paddled.
As I write this, those rapids have already been inundated.
Just past the dam site we come to a rapid called Big Brother, which has a long tongue that accelerates you into a maelstrom of white water including a wave they call the Silverback - named after the male mountain gorilla because of its size and strength.
The rapids on the Nile are mainly where there are islands in the channel forcing the river into constraints.
This also means that there are many different channels to explore, providing different challenges if you have the time.
In between the rapids, you get to see how the local people live and interact with the river. You are never alone for long, with people fishing, doing their washing, collecting water or even just crossing the river.
We saw one man swimming across the river with his clothes held above his head on a stick. We went to give him a hand but he was happy to keep swimming.
You also get to see plenty of different birds, such as fish eagles and weaver birds, as well as wildlife such as otters and huge monitor lizards.
The last rapid of the day is called Itunda. It is massive, with a series of huge recirculating holes that could swallow a bus, and a line that sends you weaving from one side of the river to the other to miss them.
This day we walk the top half and put in halfway down, past the hardest moves. But I've remembered the line - how I think it will look from the river - so that on our next trip I can run it from the top.
The next day we run the lower section of river. I paddle Kalagala Falls in front of a crowd of excited locals. The rapids below here, although not as big as the top section, have some excellent play waves, and we paddle ourselves to exhaustion.
The last wave of the day is called The Nile Special and is recognised as one of the best play waves in the world. To access the wave, you have to slingshot yourself out of an eddy using a water-ski rope. It takes some practice to get it right but the ride is wild, getting tossed and bounced around while trying to make it look like you're in control.
Max Rayner, who is 14, is an expert play-boater and gives us tips and lets us know the names of the moves we are pulling off.
The rest of the week passes quickly. We paddle every day.
Kellie, who has done an awesome job as shuttle bunny, dropping us off and picking us up, negotiating the local roads and the locals by herself, gets to join us on the river for a couple of trips on the raft. I could easily have spent another couple of weeks here exploring the river.
Uganda and the Nile exceeded our expectations. Sure we were lucky, having friends there to make the trip special, but now I can't wait to go back.
The people are friendly, and although there are lots of guns we never really felt threatened. We were amazed by the amount of wildlife that we saw in the two weeks we were there.
If you ever wanted to go on safari for that Out Of Africa experience, then Uganda is all that you could imagine and more.
Roy Bailey lives in Wanaka.
If you go
• The Baileys flew Emirates from Christchurch to Entebbe International Airport via Sydney, Dubai and Ethiopia.
• All you need to enter Uganda is a vaccination certificate for yellow fever and $US50 ($NZ62) for a visa that you can get on arrival. The Baileys also had vaccinations for tetanus, hepatitis A and typhoid, and took anti-malaria tablets.
• Tourist activities in Uganda are paid for in US dollars, so you need to keep some dollars with you.
• For more information on the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary tours go to www.rhinofund.org.
