2-Day Murchison Falls Safari With Ziwa Rhino Tracking

The road north passes through the town of Luwero and into Uganda's agricultural heartland before the landscape gradually opens up and the distant profile of the Rift Valley escarpment comes into view. After approximately two and a half hours, you arrive at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary for your rhino tracking experience. At Ziwa, you are handed over to a specialist site ranger for a briefing before heading on foot into the sanctuary. Tracking Uganda's only wild Southern White Rhinos takes approximately two to three hours and unfolds entirely on foot, which makes the encounter genuinely visceral — these are enormous animals at close range, in open bush, with no vehicle between you. The experience is carefully managed, deeply respectful of the animals, and consistently described by visitors as one of the most memorable wildlife moments of their lives.

After Ziwa, you continue north to Murchison Falls National Park, where you pass through the main gate and make your way to the river launch point for the afternoon boat cruise on the Victoria Nile. The 3-hour cruise travels upstream toward the base of Murchison Falls, with wildlife visible on both banks throughout. Nile crocodiles bask on sandbanks. Hippo pods surface and submerge. Elephants and buffaloes wade to the river's edge to drink. Kingfishers, bee-eaters, and herons line every overhanging branch. As the boat rounds the final bend, the roar of the falls becomes audible before the cascade comes into view — white water thundering through its narrow gorge with extraordinary force. You return to the launch site as the light turns golden and proceed to Heritage Safari Lodge for check-in, a shower, and a well-earned dinner before an early night ahead of tomorrow's game drive.

The 6:00 AM departure is deliberate and essential. In the golden minutes after dawn, Murchison’s savannah is at its most alive — lions returning from night hunts, elephants moving from the woodland to water, and the Nubian giraffe — one of the world’s rarest giraffe subspecies, found almost exclusively in Uganda Key species: lion, elephant, Nubian (Rothschild) giraffe, Cape buffalo, Uganda kob Additional species: leopard, oribi, Lelwel’s hartebeest, waterbuck, warthog, olive baboon No visit to Murchison Falls is complete without standing at the top — where the experience is completely different from the base. A short walk from the parking area leads to the rock outcrop at the gorge’s edge, where you can stand directly above the point where the Nile’s full force is concentrated into that extraordinary 7-metre gap. The view down into the gorge — the churning white water After the Top of the Falls, begin the return drive to Kampala. with a lunch stop en route at a local restaurant .