Activities and experiences
Things to do in Kidepo Valley National Park
Game drives on the Narus circuits, a 30 km wilderness drive to a dry sand river on the South Sudan border, guided walks, mountain hikes and two living cultures. Everything here comes from UWA's official activity list, with the official prices where they exist.
Narus Valley game drives: the core of a Kidepo safari
The Narus Valley holds the park's only permanent water, so this is where the game is. Buffalo herds work the valley-floor swamps, giraffe browse the drier slopes above, and lions use the rock outcrops, when the luck runs your way. The main circuits loop through Kakine, Katurum and Nagusokopire, with newer loops north-west of Apoka and south of the seasonal Crocodile Pool.
A UWA guide for a day drive costs $20, and unusually that is per guide, not per person, which makes a guided drive one of the best-value activities in any Ugandan park. Self-driving your own circuit costs $10 per vehicle. Night drives run at $30 per person, are restricted to guests sleeping inside the park, and always carry a mandatory UWA guide.
The Kidepo Valley drive: 30 km into the emptiness
The park's second signature activity is the drive north from Apoka to the Kidepo Valley itself: 30 km that UWA fairly describes as short on big game but massive on scenery. Pause at the Lokimorigen watershed for views to Jebel Lotuke, a 2,975 m peak across the border in South Sudan, then descend to the Kidepo River crossing, where you can walk on the dry sand riverbed between borassus palms. Ostrich and secretary bird are the specialities up here. A ranger escort is required.
Eleven kilometres beyond the river crossing, on the South Sudan border, lie the Kanangorok hot springs, a modest cluster of small hot pools. Manage your expectations: this is a scenic border excursion, not a bathing resort. You will see the name spelled Kanataruk on UWA's own map; both spellings are in circulation for the same place.
Walks and hikes
- Short guided walks around Apoka Rest Camp find zebra, hartebeest and reedbuck on foot. All walks require a ranger guide, at $25 per person.
- Longer walks run through East Kakine, with giraffe, buffalo, elephant and sometimes distant lion.
- The Rionomoe Trail covers 15 km along the southern side of the Narus Valley.
- Hiking Mount Lomej costs $40 per person; the longer Lonyili summit hike costs $50.
- Binocular viewpoints stand at Apoka Rest Camp, Nagusokopire and Kakine; the Kakine viewpoint gives a 360-degree panorama over the Napore-Nyungea range, the Morungule mountains and Mount Lomej.
The Ik of Mount Morungole, written properly
The Morungule range north-east of Apoka is home to the Ik, and most of what safari websites write about them is wrong and disrespectful. The familiar framing of a tiny, dying hunter-gatherer tribe traces back to a heavily criticised 1972 book. The reality: the Ik are a community of an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people, primarily subsistence farmers, living in clan villages called odoks around Mount Morungole in Kaabong district.
Visits are walked with a ranger escort and require advance arrangement, so plan this before you arrive rather than on the morning. Done properly, it is a long, rewarding hill walk to a living farming community, not a museum visit. On the mountain's height: UWA's brochure gives Morungole as 2,570 m, and the often-quoted 2,750 m figure appears to confuse the mountain with the park's overall altitude ceiling.
Karamojong culture
The plains around the park belong to the Karamojong, and community walks visit manyattas, the traditional homesteads, at Kawalakol, Lorukul and Karenga. Karamojong stools, knives, spears and jewellery are among the most sought-after craft traditions in Uganda, and buying them at the source puts money directly into the villages that share the park boundary, which also receive 20 per cent of all park fees.
Park rules, with the official fines
- Stay on the tracks: off-track driving costs $150 per person in the vehicle, charged to the driver.
- Speed limit 40 km/h; over-speeding costs UGX 100,000, as do littering and using your horn.
- No campfires or camping outside designated sites, no pets, no firearms, no picking vegetation.
- Sitting on top of a moving vehicle costs $100, and hitting an animal on the road carries a $500 fee.
- Keep every receipt until you leave the park.