Martin:

We don’t get very far down the rough mountain road out of Bwindi this morning before we notice a problem. Hektor is bucking up and down like a rowing boat in a storm. Every bump sets us bouncing – a rhythm that keeps going for some seconds even after we stop. There’s clearly something wrong with the front shocks. Almost certainly partly due to the fact that last night Hector ended up carrying 8 people back from the Gorilla trekking. The two guides hanging on to the rear ladder and the spare wheel may have upset his balance somewhat. The guides and another trekker had been abandoned by a couple of Germans in a chauffeur-driven minibus who had given them a lift out for the start of their trek but had decided they didn't feel like taking them back again. We’d done the decent thing and offered everyone a lift. Me driving, Sophie on Dan's knee in the front, two on the small back seat, Annemarie sitting on the fridge (and hitting her head on the ceiling with every bump) and the tqo guides hanging onto the rear. The morning after the night before we seemed to be paying for it.

Hektor though is pretty tough so we kept going. Heading for Queen Elizabeth National Park and what we hoped would be a date with some tree climbing lions. The usual long drive made a little slower by the fact we had to be much more careful over the bumps if we were to avoid causing more damage and/or incurring bad cases of sea sickness. We made it to the park on a rather circuitous route - which almost had us across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite that all seemed to be going fine and then, a few miles further down the road disaster struck. We hit a pothole and one of Hektor’s front springs popped out entirely. On closer inspection it turned out both front shocks had completely blown out of their casings and with nothing to hold the spring in place it had come free.

Given we were hoping to find lions nearby this was clearly not a great place to break down. But with Dan and Sophie on-board there were four of us to put Hektor back together again. Daniel also having had experience of landrover’s was an enormous help. We lifted Hektor up with the high lift jack and were able to drag the spring back into place. He was fixed, at least temporarily, but the shocks were still blown so we knew we'd have to be more careful from now on if we were to avoid a repeat performance.

We’d lost a lot of time fixing Hektor from what was already a tight schedule – not just the lions to see today but also a river cruise. At the park entrance one of the ranger’s advised that we probably wouldn’t now have time to find the lions and make the river cruise. We’d have to choose between the two but he was pretty sure we wouldn’t see lions anyway - no one had recently. Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise. The decision had been made for us – time to bounce onward to the river. After all we already had our sea legs now.

The river trip took us down the 20 mile long Kazinga Channel which runs between Lake Edward and Lake George. We found its banks lined with hippo, water buffalo, elephant and crocodile and a huge abundance of bird life. It was a small boat and we were the only ones on it so our boatman was able to get us incredibly close to the wildlife. The beauty of the river cruise turned what otherwise could have been a disappointing and frustrating day into absolute joy.