The legendary Nile

Flowing from Lake Victoria in the middle of Africa, the Nile is the longest river on the planet and has long fascinated explorers and travelers alike. Today kayakers travel to this whitewater mecca in Uganda to enjoy big warm water rapids and choice surfing waves situated right on the equator in an endless summer. Max & I jetted in to savour this big water nirvana and in particular to run the first 5 rapids which will be destroyed on the completion of the Bujagali Falls dam early next year, so for us it was now or never to kayak those spectacular rapids and to savour the diverse & prolific wildlife on & around them.

Our adventure began with our journey from Entebbe airport to the river via the chaotic streets of Kampala and busy rural villages teeming with people, which was such a contrast to the staid ordered cityscapes & landscapes of the US & NZ where the automobile is king.We arrived to a warm welcome from our friends Cam & Kate McLeay, their kids Arch, Bella & Zander at their tented rainforest camp situated on a spectacular overlook of Kalagala falls on the Nile. The Mcleays own & operate Adrift a tourism business based in Uganda which offers a range of activities including rafting, bungy & jetboating and they have recently opened Wildwaters lodge, a spectacular luxury tourist eco-resort built by Cam & his brother Chest with a team of 120 workers on a pristine rain forest island in the river accessible only by canoe.

The establishment of the lodge has enabled this island and adjoining islands to be protected as there is great pressure for farmland to feed a growing population leading to deforestation and degradation of much of the surrounding riverbank land. The head chef at the lodge is Wamboga was Cam & Kate's cook in Kampala when we visited them nearly 2 years ago.

Max & I had dinner at the lodge one evening & spent the night in a gorgeous little bungalow at the lodge overlooking Hypoxia rapid & were woken up at dawn by the screeching of hundreds of hadeda storks roosting in a nearby tree.

Over the next 6 days Max & I kayaked around Kalagala discovering surfing waves and rapids, initially with Roberto, an Adrift safety kayaker & raft guide who introduced us to local cuisine and we also did some runs with Cam & his 12 year old son Arch.

Our base was halfway down the whitewater section and we were able to do a circuit by walking upriver around the rapids & paddling up to Bobuga falls, surf at superhole & Mumba waves, then paddle down & portage part of Intunda rapid & then kayak back to camp. The water was warm and there were no other kayakers on the river.

We loved the lower river section downstream of Kalagala thru the big waves in the grade 3 rapids named Vengence, Hair of the Dog & Kulu shaker.

We got our first taste of big surfing on the second wave in a wave train on Hair of the Dog, which was hard to get on but once there gave a big bouncy surf with the surging white foam crashing down over our heads. A magic place with a nearby fish eagle nest and the male fish eagle perching on a nearby branch with a grandstand view every day we surfed there. On the first day there Max did a big bounce & smacked his paddle into his face so the wave was named Fatlip.

The last rapid on the lower section was a big wave train featuring the internationally known wave, the Nile Special, which wasn't so special for us as the river was low. But 3 waves down that rapid was Club which although it surged alot gave us the best rides on the river, and we spent lots of time there. Life at Kalagala was simple, with no electricity or running water. Cam & Kate have a solar panel to charge their phones & computers and there is good cell phone coverage.

We either ate at the camp with local produce or popped into the nearby village of Kangulumira to buy rolex, chapatis made with egg & a firm McLeay family favourite.

Bathing was with hot water heated by staff over a fire and tipped into a cloth bag with a shower nozzle and hoisted up on a rope in a shower tent.

With tent life you get to hear all outside noise and accordingly each night we went to bed to a noisy cocophany of frogs and insects with a very loud cricket sounding like tinkling bells and every morning we woke to a loud morning chorus of bird calls and with more than 1000 bird species in Uganda there was a full spectrum of sounds.

One morning we were treated a pair of black & white casqued hornbills checking out a nestsite in a tree hollow.

Once the nest is selected the female climbs inside, the entrance is sealed up by the male and she then lays & incubates the eggs.

The female only emerges when the chicks are ready to be fed.

The river is not in a gorge and the rapids are at the end of big pools where the river flows down different channels over pink granite rocks between islands cloaked in lush rain forest.

The river environment teems with bird, insect, reptile & fish life. It seems more like an estuary with cormorants, herons & shags everywhere.

There are no seagulls, however the cry of the majestic fish eagle sounds just like a NZ black backed gull.

The locals fish from canoes in the pools with nets & lines, and seem to extract out of the river alot of little fish for drying, also Nile perch & tilapia which forms a significant part of the local diet.

I don't know if the ecology of the river has been properly studied as I imagine there would be a big range of life beneath the water surface. Every couple of days we saw otters, monitor lizards & snakes swimming in the river. One day we saw a group of ring tailed mongoose.

We took Arch out for a few sessions & he was quick & fearless learner because he has a prominent adventure gene, and it was amazing to see him rolling in solid grade 3 rapids even though he had only been receiving kayaking instruction from Paul, one of the local Ugandan Adrift kayakers for 3 weeks.

Part way through that first week Max, myself & Arch stayed the night at the Adrift rafting base in Jinja & were woken up at dawn with a troop of red tailed monkeys running across the roof of our dorm. While Arch went on a raft, Roberto guided Max & I on this top section of the river. The rapids we did in the morning all had straight forward lines but had big crashing waves. The biggest were Bujagali Falls which we ran down the right & Big Brother which runs thru the dam site with most of the river concentrated into one channel.

I reckon the river volume is about 1200 cumecs.

We were both apprehensive above Big Brother but the sight of a fish eagle (looks like a bald eagle) circling us as we approached the rapid soothed my nerves as we blasted down a huge 150 meter long green chute into a confused boiling exploding wave train.

Roberto instructed us on doing a spin manuevour halfway down the tongue so we would be moving left in the maelstrom. I took some very deep breaths heading down the chute just in case I had some down time. I had an amazing view of Roberto & Max in front of me and although I made it thru upright it was a relief to pop out at the end of the rapid safely & to see that Max was also thru fine. We were totally spoilt with a great lunch and with an enjoyable afternoons paddle down the afternoon section of rapids & surfing waves.

The raft trip has a spectacular finale with the rafts negotiating a big hole called "the bad place' at the end of Intunda rapid in which there is a 50/50 chance of capsizing and many swimming rafters get recirculated in the powerfull hole. The line down the rapid is called 50/50. Us kayakers can easily skirt round the bad place but the wider rafts cannot.

Archies raft of course flipped which he loved & was eager to go back for more. Our great day on the river finished with kebabs, chapatis & Nile Special beers.

The link to the Adrift website is http://adrift.ug/ and I suggest you look at the wildlife section in the gallery for images from the river and also click on Wildwaters Lodge to view this beautiful resort created by a couple of farm boys from Rotorua.