Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison Falls National Park, in the north-west of the country, is Uganda’s largest national park, and together with adjoining wildlife reserves it forms a vast wilderness covering over 5,000 sqkm. It is home to a wide variety of wildlife, forest primates and 450 bird species. The mighty Nile, the longest river in the world, flows through the heart of the park for a distance of 120 km, on its 6,500 km journey from Lake Victoria to Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

The park’s centrepiece is the explosive, 50-metre high Murchison Falls where the Nile is forced through an 8-metre gap in the Rift Valley escarpment.

Downstream, the Nile flows quietly towards Lake Albert, which it enters through a large papyrus delta. It is this peaceful 40 km stretch of river that provides the park’s prime wildlife spectacle and where we explore.

Murchison Falls National Park and the adjacent Bugondo Forest Reserve have 76 species of mammals as well as Uganda’s largest population of crocodiles. Chimpazee trekking is offered. 450 bird species are also present – ranging from easy variety of waterbirds, Bugondo’s 59 “restricted range” species, dwarf kingfisher, Goliath heron, white-thighed hornbill and great blue turaco.