Destinations: Kidepo Valley Park

Kidepo Valley was first gazette as a game reserve and upgraded to national park status in 1962.it covers an area of 1,442km between 914m and 2,750m above sea level. Located in Uganda’s remote north east corner, Kidepo is one East Africa’s last great wildernesses. Though for years Kidepo could only be reached by air, due to poor roads and perennial insecurity in northern Uganda, it is now a single days drive from Kampala.

The park contains two rivers, Kidepo and Narus that flow only after heavy rain. During the dry months, wildlife is dependent on remnant pools along the Narus. Uganda’s most isolated park is found in the country’s distant north-eastern corner, close to Kenya and south Sudan in the farthest extremity of the remote, sparsely populated Karamoja region.

One East Africa’s most magnificent wilderness, the Kidepo landscape is on of tremendous drama with grasslands roamed by big game favourites extending towards rugged mountains in all points of the compass. It is an area of rich cultural interest for the plains around the park are dotted with the manyattas (homes)of Karamoja’s fiercely traditional pastoralists.

The park consist of two broad, shallow valleys; Narus and Kidepo.these are drained by seasonal ‘sand’ river that fill and then only briefly after rainstorms in the morungule mountains. The kidepo valley and its tributes are completely dry for most of the year while remnant pools persist along the Narus.Historically these represented important water points for which local clans compared during the dry months.

Today as the only permanent water within the park, these pools are equally critical for wildlife.as a result, the parks wildlife tourism activities and infrastructure are concentrated in the southern part of the Narus valley around Apoka. Perhaps surprisingly, given the harsh climate,kidepo’s savanna, bush and forests habitats support a wide diversity of mammals with 86species.

Indeed it is the only Ugandan refuge for number of species, including cheetah bat-earned fox, striped hyaenas and caracal while eland only occurs in Kidepo and Lake Mburo.though buffalo are far from rare in Uganda, their huge seasonal congregations in the swamps of kidepo’s Narus valley cannot fail to impress.

Elepahants, Rothschild’s giraffe, lion, leopard spotted hyaenas and black backed and side-striped jackal are also present. Giraffes and Buffaloes while Hippos, Nile crocodiles and aquatic birds are permanent residents.