Jinja & the Source of the Nile

Your Journey, Day by Day

1. 1Day 1 of 2

   Kampala to Jinja

   Drive east about 2.5 hours through sugarcane country, with the option of a zip-line strung through the Mabira rainforest canopy on the way. After lunch you are on the water. The rafted section runs below the source through a chain of big-volume Grade 5 rapids with names the guides deliver deadpan: Overtime, Nile Special, and Itanda, which most crews portage rather than run. Full-day and half-day options both put you in a raft with a certified guide and a safety kayaker per boat; a gentler Grade 3 family float covers the same river without the carnage. A riverside sundowner afterwards, with the swifts working the gorge.

   Mabira Forest zip-line (optional)White-water rafting or family floatRiverside sundowner
   Meals:Lunch, Dinner

   Overnight:Jinja riverside lodge
2. 2Day 2 of 2

   Source of the Nile & Return

   A morning boat out to the Source of the Nile, the point where the river leaves Lake Victoria and begins a 6,700km run to the Mediterranean, the spot John Hanning Speke reached in 1862 and, correctly as it turned out, claimed as the answer to a question that had occupied geographers for two thousand years. There is a marker, a line of flags, and a genuinely strange sense of scale. Then an optional add-on if you want one: kayaking, tubing, quad biking, or the 44-metre bungee off the platform over the river, before the drive back to Kampala.

   Source of the Nile boat tripOptional kayaking / bungeeReturn to Kampala
   Meals:Breakfast, Lunch

   Overnight:Departure