Murchison Falls National Park re-opens old Honeymoon Track

UGANDA (eTN) – October 24, 2015 saw a milestone with the re-opening of the old Honey Moon game track in the Southern sector of Murchison Falls National Park after more than 20 years of neglect.

The opening was presided over by the Executive Director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), Dr. Andrew Seguya, who was accompanied by the Murchison Falls Conservation Area Warden for Tourism, Agnes Nakidde, and several concessionaires located within this sector including Sambiya, Murchison River Lodge, Nile Safari Camp, Bakers Lodge, Kabalega Wilderness Camp, Red Chili Camp, and Budongo Eco-Lodge.

More than eighty percent of the parks game drives and activities have been concentrated on barely a quarter of Uganda’s largest 3,840-square-kilometer park in the northern sector.

The track, aptly named Honey Moon Track, is said to have derived its name from a couple that spent the night on the newly-created track in the 1950s.

To get there, one has to travel 7 kilometers on the road to the Top of Falls before turning onto the Honey Moon Track. Approximately 27 kilometers of the Honey Moon circuit takes at least two-and-a-half hours connecting the Top of Falls road with the Rabongo area famous for primates, before looping onto the main Paraa-Masindi road 3 kilometers south of the Sambiya River. The track then snakes into the area known as the “Heart of Murchison.”

As more tracks are completed off the Honey Moon Track leading to scenic savannah plains, more giraffe shall be introduced from the northern sector where they are abundant, says the UWA boss.

However you will not get animals accustomed to safari vehicles as is the case in the northern sector. “….They are still shy, having lived in isolation for long,” he added. The animal checklist is as impressive with herds of Uganda kob, Jackson’s Hartebeest, Cape buffalo, waterbucks, oribi, warthogs, elephant, and even sightings of lion.

Debbie Malik, proprietor of the Sambiya River Lodge, which is looped by the circuit, was finally relieved as this would boost visitor occupancy.

The first lodge to open in 1996 since UWA offered concessions within the park, she and her departed husband Parvez, had lobbied UWA to reopen the tracks in the south having borne the brunt of paying concessionaire fees and yet facing competition from lodges in the northern sector and those in the south but located outside the park and, therefore, not bound by the concessionaire fees. This was while hoping that the ferry which links the southern and northern sectors does not break down leading to losses in bed nights.

She said, “The new circuit shall provide visitors at Sambiya River Lodge the opportunity to do a late afternoon and evening game drives. This will be especially good for birders looking for nocturnals.

She is, however, more convinced that the park has finally relented to re-opening alternate tracks ostensibly from oil exploration in the northern sector. This has, however, been mitigated by UWA’s Operational Guidelines for Oil and Gas Exploration and Production in Wildlife Protected Areas that the stakeholders have for the most part expressed satisfaction with under the “grievance handling mechanism” set by the exploration companies.

Zahid Alam, who has operated Nile Safari Camp along the Nile in Mubaku under the GeoLodges outfit since 1993, offered his felicitations to UWA saying after more than thirty years of being inactive, any new product offers the opportunity for more wholesalers to introduce new experiences to their clients.

Elise Baldwin, General Manager of Murchison River Lodge park, a more recent development located south of the park, simply said, “We welcome any new track in the park as it will allow for more of the park to be explored.”

Five hours from the capital of Kampala, this park is located in the Albertine Graben and has been romanticized as an explorers’ haven, hosting an impressive celebrity list since Samuel and Lady Florence Bakers’ trail in 1864, rated top ten on CNN’s inspiring trails, Winston Churchill’s “African Journey” in 1907, Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting exploits in 1911, the Queen Mother of England’s visit in 1959, and the New York Times 1954 screaming headlines reporting “Hemingway and wife safe in East Africa after two plane crashes.”

The park has also been featured in the backdrop of the Hollywood film “African Queen” starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, filmed in 1951.

With the opening of the new tracks, Murchison Falls is likely to witness an increase in visitor numbers as well as the prospect of more investment opportunities in this uncharted country.