Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison Falls National Park is Uganda’s most popular safari destination offering a quality wildlife experience amidst spectacular scenery including the Murchison Falls from which it derives it name. Murchison Falls which also the park’s top highlight lies on a stretch of the Victoria Nile that bisects the park into two equal halves. These world’s most powerful waterfalls occur where the over 200m wide Victoria Nile contracts through a 6m rock crack in the rift valley escarpment wall before tumbling down through a 40m long canyon to flow quietly into L. Albert.

The park protects a diversity of habitats which includes extensive savanna grasslands dotted with Borassus palms on the northern banks of the Nile with acacia woodland, scrub and dry bush dominating much of the eastern section of this park. At the confluence of the R. Nile and L. Albert, is the delta where papyrus and other marshes dominate. On the southern banks of the Nile, vegetation consists of woodlands graduating into the moist-lowland forest reserve of Budongo.

Murchison Falls NP Quick Facts

  • Size: 3840 km2
  • Altitude: 619m–1292m
  • Mammal species: 76 mammals
  • Bird species: 480 birds
  • Drive time from Kampala – 320km/5 hrs.
  • Location: Northwestern Uganda

Things to do while at Murchison Falls NP

  • Take Untamed Wildlife Game Drives

Murchison Falls NP is a popular wildlife safari destination noted for a diversity and abundant game across the park’s plethora of habitats. The diversity of game includes the largest population of Nubian (Rothchild’) Giraffe and Uganda kob but also 4 of the famous Africa Big 5. Other wildlife include, Jackson’s (Lelwel’s) Hartebeest, Oribi, Common Warthog, Cape Buffalo, terrestrial Patas Monkey among others.

The woodlands are tamed by herds of African Savanna Elephants, Bushbuck and Deffassa Water Buck. Carnivores are well represented including Lion, the elusive Leopard, Spotted Hyena, Side-striped Jackal and several mongoose species.

  • Bird Watching at Murchison Falls National Park

Murchison Falls National Park is Uganda’s top birding hotspot with a checklist of over 480 species of birds occurring across the park’s varied habitats. The park’s geographic location along the migration corridor for north-to-south migrating species and intra-African voyagers brings in specialists from flocks of Northern-Carmine Bee-eater, Egyptian Plover, Pennant-winged Nightjar, Red-backed Shrike, Northern Wheatear, Montagu’s and Pallid Harriers, etc.

The wetlands around the Nile Delta not only host L. Victoria biome species including Caruthers’s Cisticola, Papyrus Gonolek but also the prehistoric Shoebill often found stalking the shallow vegetated delta edges. Towards the mouth of L. Albert congregations of African Skimmers and other waders occur.

Other quality highlights include Silverbird, Red-throated, Swallow-tailed and Little Green Bee-eaters, Rattling Cisticola, Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, Dark Chanting Goshawk, Black-billed Wood-Dove, Vinaceous Dove, Grey Kestrel, Red-winged Prinia, Red-winged Grey Warbler, Beaudouin’s Snake-Eagle, Martial Eagle, Denham and Black-bellied Bustards, Spotted Thick-knee, Piac-piac, Speckle-fronted Weaver and more.

A Northern Carmine Bee-eater at Murchison Falls NP

  • Take a Boat Cruise on the Nile

A boat cruise safari on Victoria Nile while in Murchison falls NP is a popular highlight to safari enthusiasts that visit here. A boat cruise upstream the Nile bring you into a full view the mighty Murchison Falls formed as the Nile crushes through a 6m rock craft in the escarpment wall and through a 40m canyon before peaceful flowing down to L. Albert on the rift valley floor. Wildlife is abundant along the Nile banks from hippos, to Nile Monitor, Nile Crocodiles, buffalos, elephants and more. Birdlife is also excellent especially the dazzling Red-throated Bee-eaters which nest in the sandy cliffs.

Another exciting boat cruise leads downstream to the Delta point, a point where the Nile pour its effluent into L. Albert. Here, the slow-moving Victoria Nile now about 2km wide discharges its silt through a maze of papyrus before heading north into the Sudan as White Nile. This papyrus marsh is a great birdwatching area with a healthy checklist of papyrus and wetland specialists including the world’s biggest heron the giant Goliath Heron and the prehistoric Shoebill.

  • Hike to the Top of Murchison Falls National Park

The spectacular Murchison falls occur as the mighty and wide Victoria Nile squeezes through a 6m wide escarpment wall crack with a sheer force and tumbling through a 40m canyon thus creating the world’s most powerful waterfalls. A visit here, gives you great views deep into the famous Devils cauldron, a deep canyon cut through the escarpment wall by the thunderous voluminous Nile waters creating mist and permanent rainbow.

On the highest viewpoint over the canyon, you get a full perspective watching the Nile as it plunges into this canyon. With time on your hands, take a hike down to the famous Baker’s point to get a full view of not only the Murchison falls but also the Uhuru Falls.

  • Go Chimpanzee Tracking Experience

While at Murchison Falls, trek up-close and along man’s closest cousin in the nearby Kaniyo Pabidi section of Budongo Forest. This Uganda’s largest intact low-altitude forest is dominated by mahogany and ironwood species of trees and hosts the biggest number of Chimpanzee population in Uganda estimated at about 5000 strong spreads in different communities. This epic guided activity starts early towards several habituated communities of this great primate lasting up to 4-hours or more.

Other primates include Black and White Colobus Monkeys (Guerrezza), Olive Baboon, Vervet Monkey, Grey-cheecked Mangabey and the Red-tailed Monkey.

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