Nilefest & Bujagali farewell

This is the fourth time I've spent time kayaking a river whose whitewater is scheduled for destruction from the construction of a hydro dam. Its a bittersweet experience with intense kayaking on doomed rapids.

This Nile section is even more so because of the teeming wildlife and rainforest islands in the Bujagali section which will slip beneath the lake to form behind the 30 meter high dam wall.

With these sobering thoughts in mind Max, Roy & I embarked on a week of kayaking to make the most of our remaining time in Uganda along with Cam who joined us when he could get a break from his busy life.

With Roy along the standard of kayaking lifted and everyday saw some newer bigger waves surfed & harder rapids surfed. We found a pushier wave immediately upstream of superhole which we called Mumba (COW in Swahili). After a thrashing in this wave we would go down to superhole for a mellow surf and to practice blunts, cartwheels & loops. On our first day on this circuit Roy ran Kalagala falls making it look very straight forward.

We kayaked the lower section down to the Nile Special where Club was working well giving big awesome bouncy rides to all of us down the face of the wave with its 1 meter high surging foam pile up on top. Kelly met us at the takeout having driven 18 kms thru the back blocks to pick us up.

The next day Cam was able to join us for a trip down the upper section through the dam site, together with Roberto as guide and his brother Steve to take photos. We all successfully ran the left side of Bujagali falls. We surfed Easy Rider and we all had a wild time kayaking down Big Brother without mishap. I was at the back of the group and got a great view of kayaks getting tossed around everywhere as I came down the great tongue. In one of the eddies Cam spied a swimming forest cobra which I paddled over to.

When I was about 3 meters away it coiled up, lifted its head up out of the water and spread its hood and I backed off. I also followed an otter which popped up out of the water about 6 times & got close to a big monitor lizard climbing up the bank which didn't notice me behind it. The wildlife on the river is so prolific & stunning here.

Cam had organized a VIP lunch for us on the rafting lunch island which was a welcome break in the shade from the hot sun.

The afternoon saw Roy & Roberto kayak the top part of Overtime with the rest of us only running the waterfall in the second part. Then we kayaked around to Chop Suey a big bouncy rapid passing under a huge tree laden with sleeping bats.

The pools between the rapids in the afternoon section are long and it gives an opportunity to check what the fishermen are catching and to find out all about local life from the Ugandan kayakers including their tribal and clan background, indigenous religious beliefs (the Kilagala camp is beside a cultural area on the riverbank where local deities are worshipped) and current Ugandan politics. Roberto told me that as a kid he would occasionally swim with the otters but said many of them are being killed in fishermen's nets.

Roberto's family farm beside the lunch island and as a kid he would hang out when the rafting trips came by & help where he could and this led to him getting a job with Adrift. The rafting company is run almost entirely by Ugandans and provides work for dozens of local people. Adrift is a very tidy and safe operation setting a high standard which the other local rafting companies are unable to match.

That night I cooked Nile perch for dinner.

One of the hazards at Kalagala camp are safari ants which march in big columns working together and are vicious if you stand on them, swarming up your leg and then all biting at the same time.

The Mcleays had some horror stories of their ant experiences over the past few years. During our stay at the camp I saw three separate ant columns at different times, but luckily I never got bitten.

One day we had a break from the river & helped Cam & Chest transport a 1.1 tonne diesel generator across the river to Wildwaters lodge using only the muscle power of 28 local labourers who manhandled the generator down a river bank, onto a raft (which us mazungus paddled across), up the bank on the island and then pushed on wooden rollers about 100 hundred meters to its shed. The process took 3 hours and I can now imagine how the ancient pyramids were built!

We were rewarded with a fantastic lunch at the lodge. That evening we did a lower Nile run, getting in some classic surfing at Fatlip & Club and finishing right on dark. We were treated to seeing a family of red tailed monkeys on the riverbank. Our drive back to camp was on dark roads congested with people returning home.

Cam lent us his truck & we drove to Jinja to do another run down the upper section. It was nice to be greeted by the Adrift staff who we had got to know greeting them in their local language Lugandan & doing their local handshake.

I had a pleasant surprise to see Jan, who I had met my last time in Uganda and his family from Belguim who were rafting for the day.

Kellie was also rafting.

We had a very pleasant time on the doomed rapids with good lines & good surfing. Max & I made the most of our last run down Big Brother running straight down the middle.

I almost made it all upright getting thru the first 2 waves but got absolutely nailed on the big Silverback wave which crashed right down on top of me.

Luckily I had taken some extra deep breaths coming down the tongue as it took me awhile to roll upright. We were in front of the rafts & had a ringside seat of the rafts coming down the tongue & into the white chaos.

I saw the biggest monitor lizards of the trip, 2 of them the size of medium sized crocodiles on the bank. We saw a fish eagle catch a fish. I paddled all of Overtime with Roy.

We woke the bats on the tree by Chop Suey and it was a surreal scene with the blue sky full of hundreds of whirling bats flying in full daylight with a fish eagle calmly perched on a tree right in the middle of this frenzy as we kayaked by down a roaring rapid trying to watch the wildlife & pick a line thru the waves all at the same time.

Roy kayaked all of Intunda with Henry who was guiding us for the day.

It was an impressive sight as the rapid is about 500 meters long and which gets more intense nearer the end. Roy had a great run past the holes called Pencil Sharpener, the Cuban, Ashtray & the Bad Place, none of which he would want to go in. The rafts, Max & I portaged most of the rapid, just running the last 200 meters.

There was however raft carnage with Kellie's raft skirting the Bad Place and losing 4 rafters overboard from the left side including Kellie & the raft guide. The raft floated into an eddy and Jan was the only leftside survivor but he had lost his paddle.

The raft was floating towards a hole at the top of the eddy so I became the raft guide giving orders remotely from my kayak to reseat the remaining paddlers & get them moving back from the hole.

One of the Adrift safety kayakers soon took over guiding the raft out into the river but took it straight into a big crashing wave which flipped the raft throwing everyone into the water. Max, Roy & I then busily rescued the passengers back to the raft. It was all pretty exciting and we had a good laugh over beers & kebabs at the end of the trip.

Roy, Max & I walked thru the fields back to Kalagala and this walk was one of my highlights of our trip to Uganda. We had a couple of local boys guiding us on the meandering trail thru fields along the top of the riverbank overlooking the Nile and met & chatted to some cow herders.

Our last day of kayaking started with Max, Roy & I all running Kalagala falls, which had a straight forward line landing in soft foam after the drop. Max was the main motivator to kayak the rapid and we all had a good run with a crowd from the lodge watching the action. Cam organized a raft & guides so Kellie & Bella were able to come along too.

Archie came along for the day kayaking to do his first run down the lower section. He followed me down all the rapids, which were solid grade 3 with big waves. He has a good roll and rolled up on Arrow, Vengence and Kulu Shaker. I got too close to him on Hair of the Dog and we got tangled up in a big wave which recirculated me & although he swam he got back into his boat and it looked like he was trying to paddle out and surf Fatlip. Roy & I had rides on a very big wave above Fatlip which up until then I had been avoiding, but which wasn't too hard to get off.

Fatlip & Club were hard to get onto but gave good surfs when you could get on. As with every other day there was lots of wildlife and todays highlight was a family of otters.

3 other kayakers came along & set up a tow rope attached to the bank for towing onto the Nile Special. We all tried it & Roy was successful first. A weird experience to hold a rope in your left hand, your paddle in the right, while steering with your paddle with one hand at the back as the boat is planing sort of uphill out into the current while you lean the boat on edge to carve out to the steep middle part of the wave & then let go.

It took Max & I longer to master but we both eventually got 3 Special rides, although the rest of our group had long since left with the raft.

It was an excellent final days kayaking and our day ended with a wonderful evening at the lodge having dinner with Cam, Kate, Chest and Jan.

Max & Archie stayed the night at the lodge so they could also have breakfast there as they are both addicted to bacon, pancakes & hash browns.

Our last morning in Uganda was spent driving to Kampala, doing coffee & shopping at the Friday craft market which had awesome stuff including Congalese carvings. We farewelled Kate & Cam & headed to the airport with Max & I heading to the States & Roy & Kellie heading home to NZ.