Enjoy encounters with over 332 bird species as well as dozens of mammals, including Impala, Eland, Zebras, Warthogs, and hyenas.

Lake Mburo national park is the most accessible and nearest savanna national park from Kampala lies between Mbarara and Lyantonde districts on the Kabale-Kampala highway. It’s a hidden gem for most of the travellers in Uganda as it gives the best wild experience where one can easily make a walking safari, cycling or quad biking in the park. The park is then safest savanna park in Uganda.

Here in Lake Mburo National Park one can enjoy encounters with over 332 bird species as well as dozens of mammals, including Impala, Eland, Zebras, Warthogs, Buffaloes, Oribi, Defassa, Waterbucks, reed bucks, leopards and hyenas. The five lakes in the park attract hippos and crocodiles, while the swamp areas teem with papyrus specialists such as the sitatunga antelope and red, black and yellow papyrus gonolek.

A wealth of wildlife is supported by the varied ecosystems within the park boundaries. It is a gem of a park, in the middle of extensive rich acacia woodland. There is a network of Game Tracks in Lake Mburo National Park; the most popular are:

1) The Eastern Hinterland of Lake Mburo, along which a variety of savannah animals and birds can be sighted, the most common being the Impala. Also, the largest population of Zebras can be found here.

2) The Ruroko Track passes through rock kopies, which is the home of the elusive Klip Springer.

3) The Lakeside Track in the south of the park passes through dense woodland, home of the bushbuck and bush dulker. On this track one summits at Kigarama which provides a panoramic view of Lake Mburo itself.

Near Rwonyo, there is a jetty at the Lakeside campsite, where one can set off by boat to explore Lake Mburo itself. Here one can pass near the hippos and crocodiles on the 2 hour journey. Many birds are in plenty such as the Pelicans, Herons, and Cormorants, fish eagles, the Fin foot and Shoebill storks. With your own equipment, fishing is permitted near the campsite, if previously arranged. Also near Rwonya, one can view from a timber observation platform, the various mammals visiting the natural salt licks. Guided walking tours are conducted to these sights. The centre of the tourist activities is Rwonyo, where a rest camp is the starting point for the nature walks and game drives.

On the western side of Lake Mburo one can find a small tract of tropical high forest, with a closed canopy. This area is home to a variety of forest birds; guided tours of this area can be arranged with the park Rangers. One kilometer west of the Sanga gate, one can find the Conservation Education Center, where accommodation and educational talks are held for school groups and visitors, as well as seminars and workshops.

Access to the park is via 4 separate gateways; 2 from the Mbrara side and 2 from the Kampala side. From Kampala, they are (1) turning to Nshara gate is 13 kms past Lyantonde and Sanga gate is 27 kms past Lyantonde at Sanga Trading Centre.

On your safari in Lake Mburo national park, you will not want to leave without a legendary local tale about the formation and naming of Lake Mburo. The locals believe that initially; two brothers, Mburo and Kigarama lived in the low-lying savanna plains that marked an area which is traditionally referred to as Kaaro Karungi which literally means the beautiful land or beautiful village because it was rich in good pastures for their cattle (long horned cattle). One night Kigarama, one of the brothers dreamt that the area in which they lived was to receive substantial amounts of rainfall that would cause flooding thus taking their lives and the lives of their cattle and other property. In the morning, he shared it with his brother Mburo who took it for granted and ignored the warning.

Since in the traditional Africa dreams were respected, Kigarama decided to vacate the place for the overlooking hill leaving his brother behind. Unfortunately, the dream came true and area experienced heavy rains that caused flooding in the lowland where the two brothers lived. Mburo and all his property drowned in the pool of water brought it by the floods thus forming a lake. In return the Lake was named after Mburo while the adjacent hill was named after Kigarama in commemoration of the two brothers. These features exist up to date and can be encountered by travellers on a Ugandan safari.

Most tourists visit this sector because of the tree climbing lions. Something unique about these lions is that they spend most of their time up in the tree especially the fig tree. There are so many theories relating to why these lions have adapted so much to climbing, some believe that they do climb the trees running away from the tsetse flies, others believe that they do climb the trees to look for cooler places as the grounder is hotter during the scotching sunshine, and as a natural theory, most predators do climb trees or look for a higher elevation point to improve their sight of prey such as kobs and topis among others.

Besides the tree climbing lions, there is a variety of other wildlife species such as leopards normally spotted in the acacia trees or on a hunt in the savanna, African bush elephants, hyenas , topis which are found nowhere else in queen Elizabeth national park but in Ishasha, kobs, buffalos, hippos especially along the Ishasha river and more other animals.

HISTORY ABOUT THE PARK

This park was initially gazette in the year 1933 as a controlled hunting Area and it was later up graded into a game reserve in the year 1963. The Bahima Banyankole residents also continued with grazing their own cattle with in the reserve till it was up graded into a national park status in 1983. The government of Obote put up a decision of up grading the park which was a part that was intended to weaken the Banyankole, who were supporting the anti Obote rebels. Since the pastoralists that were evicted were not compensated for the lost grazing land and were not also helped with resettling, many of these remained very hostile to the formation of the park. The rangeland that is found outside that is park and was then divided into small ranges as well as the subsistence farming plots.

In the year 1985, which was the second regime of Obote fell and the past residents of Lake Mburo also re occurred in the park land and expelled the park stuff, as they destroyed the infrastructures as well as the wildlife. More so, less than half of the park land was re-gazzetted by the NRM government in 1986.