Here in the beautiful, modern and thoroughly exciting Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi (again!) we have time to update you on our second week in Uganda. The over riding theme is water. Rafting it, watching it, buying it and drinking it.

After our gorilla adventure we spent some time soaking up Kampala's sights and sounds. Deciding that it was time for more action we organised a white water rafting trip to the source of the mighty Nile river. The Nile is fed from Lake Victoria and from the Ethiopian highlands (that's next week) creating the White Nile and the Blue Nile which meet in Khartoum (that's the week after next). The rafting at the source of the Nile is regarded as the biggest and best in the world alongside the Zambezi (thats in about three years). We of course knew nothing of this beforehand and threw a fistful of money at what quite easily could have been a ride on a water cooler bottle down a suburban Kampala sewer.

The rafting company was really well organised and picked us up from our hotel and drove us the hour and a half east through the town of Jinja to the source of the Nile. We quickly got kitted up and boarded the boats. I (Tyson) was used as the demonstration dummy for how to fall out of, get back in to and escape from an overturned raft. I felt like a tea bag!

Following this we set off down the river. Our first rapid was a monster of a grade 5 (as big as tourists are allowed to do) that was also very long. We hit the rapid and the raft folded in half like a pneumatic human filled cornish pasty. Being at the front i was flung out and being in the middle Louise was covered in water and bodies but managed to stay in. I then rode a Grade 5 rapid on my own. Apart from some initial expletives and concern it turned out to be a cracking ride! We got to the end and Louise was able to solve the small problem of where the hell her husband had gone. A plump middle aged Danish gentleman washed by and i enquired in a friendly Aussie way if he was alright. He replied in distressed tones that he was far from okay and needed help. Our poor Nordic friend was actually fine but had swallowed enough of the Nile to cause problems for this year's harvest in Egypt and was all in all a little panicked. I swam over to him and he sought to try and and pull me under and sit on my head. A swift kick to turn him around and my knee under his back to keep him more afloat did the trick and he was snapped up by one of the rescue kayaks. The poor excuse for a viking took no further part in the day's activities.

Louise here, I just had to add my two cents worth. Grade 5 rapids are fun. They are scary, like a huge roller coaster full of water that you're pretty likely to get thrown out of. Oh and in between being pummled by the Nile, we got to appreciate what a truly beautiful place we were in. The water was warm, and great to swim in and was chock-a-block with bird life. Crazy stilt birds and huge fish eagles that flew over us with fish in their talons. Pretty amazing really. Anyway, back to the story...

The rest of the day was incident free, we hit some very big water and successfully survived "Itanda" or the Bad Place. The day was great with a lovely lunch in middle and free beers in the bus on the way home. We returned to the hotel exhausted. We dined that night at Fang Fang, a surprisingly good and classy Chinese place in the middle of Kampala where, for being honeymooners, we recieved a carved watermelon saying "Enjoy". Very wierd!

The next day we rang a tour operator to see if we could get out to Murchison Falls National Park, near the Congolese border. They said they were all full but if we paid $270 US each we could have our own trip and the price would reduce if more people signed up. By the day we left our trip had filled up reducing the cost to just $260 US for both of us! 2 nights, three days, a game drive, a river cruise, chimpanzee tracking and transport there and back was a bargain.

Before we left we had to farwell Sally who had been sharing our Kampala (and Fang Fang carved melon) experience. It must be said that my sister is a cracking travel companion and an all round top bloke who can run the pants off any cab driver in Central Africa. We had a great time sharing gorillas and Kampala with her and were sad to part with a great sister and a great mate.

Murchison was great and though we didn't see any big cats we saw loads of elephant, hippo, antelope, wart hogs, nile crocodiles, giraffe, buffalo and a hyena. Our fellow travellers weren't a bad lot (except the Americans) and we had an excellent time staying in our little mud hut soaking up the African bush. The falls themselves were amazing. The whole Victoria Nile River fed by Lake Victoria is forced through a gorge of rock just six meters wide. The effect is stunning with the water shooting out and creating clouds of spray and rainbows. The power of that volume of water pushing through such a small gap was awesome.

On our way back to Kampala we went Chimpanzee tracking. It only took about 20 minutes in the forest before we found a troop in the trees above us. Their familiar faces and social antics in the tree tops was great to watch and the noise that a whole troop of chimps makes when it gets excited would scare the living daylights out of you if you were just strolling through the forest.

On our return to Kampala we set up base at a new hotel with a pool and restaurant and set about relaxing a bit before Ethiopia. Our last discovery in Uganda was the Boda Boda. These are motorbike taxis that dinky you around Kampala for not much money. Louise and i egged on our riders to race and before you knew it we were weaving in and out of insane Kampala driving at breakneck speed (all in an entirely mother friendly safe way of course). Our final Boda Boda journey was at night to watch England v Wales at a local bar. The return race was outstanding with the lead changing several times until Louise's valiant driver lost his shoe in traffic and had to go back to retrieve it. Tyson proudly remains the undefeated Boda Boda race champion!

Now we are about an hour away from catching out flight to Addis Ababa where the next chapter of our adventure will unfold. Stay tuned!