One of Uganda’s oldest conservation areas, it was initially gazetted as a game reserve in 1926 to protect a savanna that Winston Churchill described in 1907 as ‘Kew Gardens and the zoo combined on an unlimited scale’. The park is bisected by the Victoria Nile which first races down 80km of white-water rapids before plunging 40m over the rift valley wall at Murchison Falls, the centre piece of the park. The Falls drain the last of the river’s energy, transforming it into a broad, placid stream that flows quietly across the rift valley floor for 55km to Lake Albert. This stretch of river provides one of Uganda’s most memorable wildlife spectacles on a Uganda safari. Regular wildlife includes elephant, giraffe and buffalo while hippopotamus and Nile crocodile are permanent residents. To the south of the river, the dense woodland is home to an extraordinary array of birdlife.