Lake Mburo National Park
These pre-planned Uganda safaris in Lake Mburo National Park are all-inclusive and can be customized to meet any traveler’s demands.
Lake Mburo National Park
Game drives, Bird Watching, Night drives, Nature Walks, Horseback safaris, Mountain biking and Salt lick walk
In the middle of an extensive rich acacia woodland, lies one of Uganda’s most spectacular and breathtaking wildlife safari park Lake Mburo National park. The Lake Mburo national park is the smallest Savanna park in Uganda compared to many other East African Savanna parks and covers an area of 370 square kms. The beautiful Lake Mburo national park is so close to Kampala and lies between towns of Masaka and Mbarara, It is located close to the main south western road that links Kampala to Bwindi Impenetrable forest, Kabale town, Lake Bunyonyi, Mgahinga gorilla national park and Rwanda borders.
Despite the small size of Lake Mburo national park, it has rich variety of wildlife habitats that accommodates an impressive diversity of animal and birdlife with 69 mammal species and 332 species of birds. The park is rich in woodland savanna, forest, lakes, seasonal and permanent swamps, rocky hills and bushy thickets. About 20% of Lake Mburo national park is covered by wetlands that provide a home to many aquatic animals like hippos and sitatunga.
Lake Mburo national park is the only park in Uganda that contains impalas, bush rats and it’s the only park in western Uganda with Zebra and elands. Besides these, it boosts a large number of Topi which can only be seen elsewhere in Ishasha sector of Queen Elizabeth national park. Other animals include; Warthogs, Reedbuck, Waterbuck, Buffaloes, Dwarf mangoose, sitatunga antelope, Hyenas, Leopards, Hippos and crocodiles that live in the parks five lakes. The list of animal species were expanded in 2015 when a number of Rothschild’s Giraffe were relocated to lake Mburo national park from the larger Murchison falls national park.
The park has three of the big five animals such as Leopards, Buffaloes and after years of absence, lions are once more sighted on rare occasions, with elephants and rhinos missing. The park has 5 lakes within its boundaries and a lot of bird species can be seen along the shores of the lakes and Swamps such as African finfoot, rare shoebill stork, pelicans, heron, cormorants, Papyrus gonelek, papyrus yellow warbler, white winged warbler and more. There are 13 lakes in the area both within and outside the park. Together with lake Mburo they form a 50km long wetland system linked by a swamp.
Lake Mburo boosts adventurous activities that are thrilling and relaxing. Some of these activities are Bird watching, day and night game drives, Nature walks, hiking, sports fishing, horseback riding, quad biking, launch trips on lake Mburo, cycling, cultural encounters and many more. The park has no elephants making it safe for activities like horse riding and nature walks.
Are there Lodges in Lake Mburo National Park?
The park has all ranges of accommodation both within and outside the park from budget to luxury accommodations. Some of the lodges around lake Mburo national park are include; Mihingo Lodge, Rwakobo Rock lodge, Lake Mburo Safari Lodge, Kigambira Safari Lodge, Kimbla Mantana tented camp, Eagle’s nest camp, Rwonyo rest camp and more. All these provide quality services and enough comfort for visitors to enjoy their stay.
Lake Mburo national park is mostly visited as a night stop over from other national parks but making this one night stop, provides you with fantastic and unforgettable experiences of coming so close to the wildlife.
Therefore, come explore this small park but enriched with beautiful flora and fauna, enjoy the boat trips and get so close to animals than any other park in Uganda.
Attractions in Lake Mburo
Game tracks
The eastern hinterland of Lake Mburo is served by a network of game tracks along which a variety of savannah animals and birds can be sighted, Impalas are the most commonly seen along the Impala track while Zebras frequently seen in the grassy valley floors traversed by the Zebra track. This connects to the Ruroko track which passes rock kopjes, home to the elusive Klipspringer.
In the south of the park the lake side track passes through dense woodland that is the home to bushbuck and bush duikers, to Kigarama hill which provides a panoramic view of Lake Mburo. This lake and seven more can also be seen from the Kazuma lookout, close to Kazuma track.
Lake Mburo
The eastern shores of Lake Mburo can be explored by boat, departing from the jetty at the lakeside campsite near Rwonyo. Watch out for crocodiles and hippopotamus during the two hour voyage .You can also sight a variety of birds including pelicans, Herons, cormorant, African fish eagle, and the rare African finfoot and possibly shoebill storks. Fishermen with their own equipment may fish in the Lake from the Campsite upon arrangement.
Salt licks
Guided walks explore the park around Rwonyo, culminating in a visit to a natural salt lick frequented by the wildlife. Viewing is facilitated by a timber observation platform.
Rwonyo Rest camp
Rwonyo is the center of tourism activities in the park. The rest camp is the starting point for nature walks and game drives for those visitors staying nearby.
Rubanga Forest
Though small, this tract of forest on the western side of Lake Mburo provides a taste of the tropical high forest with closed canopy and is the home to a variety of forest bird species, Rubanga can be explored with ranger guide on board.
Conservation Education Centre
The park has a Conservation Education Centre, 1km west of Sanga gate. This provides accommodation and an Education hall for school groups, visitors, seminars and workshops.
Activities in the Lake Mburo Park
Several activities can be conducted while in Lake Mburo national park. These include;
Nature walks: These are conducted on foot with the help of an armed ranger guide who explains to the visitors about various flora and fauna.
Game drives: Game drive is driving around the park in search of game animals and this is done in the visitors own vehicle.
Boat ride: Boat ride is also another interesting activity in Lake Mburo, a visitor gets a chance to see a variety of wildlife such as crocodiles, Hippopotamus, and birds like African fish eagle, African finfoot, water cormorants and different herons.
Horse Ride: Horse riding is conducted by Mihingo lodge inside the park while quad bikes riding are conducted by African All-Terrain vehicles (ATV). It gives spectacular view of the parks terrain and wildlife. Visitors can ride closer without the animals getting scared.
Accessibility to the park
Lake Mburo national park is accessible both by air jetting off at Mbarara airstrip and road transport. Lake Mburo National park lies between the towns of Masaka and Mbarara in western Uganda. It is 228km from Kampala, this is about 4hours drive.
There are two gateways to the park from Kampala – Mbarara road. Approaching from Kampala then turning to Nshara, gate is 13kms past Lyantonde. Approaching from Mbarara City, the turn off Junction for Sanga gate is at Sanga trading Centre.
Best time to visit
Lake Mburo national park is open to visitors and tourists pretty much all year round. The perfect time to visit however is September to March which is the dry season and catching sight of wildlife is much easier.