Lake Albert: The Wilderness In Sight
Lake Albert, positioned in the mid-west of Uganda, forms its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and is recorded as one of the great lakes of Africa, ranking as the seventh largest on the continent and twenty-seventh in the world in terms of volume, which makes it a potential popular destination for Uganda safari undertakers.
The Albert Lake marks the end of the arm of the western rift valley, and it stretches to over 160km in length, 30km in width, with a depth of up to 51m and 619m surface elevation above sea level.
The Albert Lake is a part of the upper Nile complex system, drawing most of its waters from the Victoria Nile that rises from the gigantic Victoria Lake in its southeast and the River Semliki rising from Edward Lake in its southwest. It can be noted that the Victoria Nile waters are not as saline as those of Lake Albert. The Lake features one main outlet named the Albert Nile, and this continues to flow out of Uganda, becoming the Mountain Nile as it penetrates South Sudan. It continues the journey to the Mediterranean Sea, passing through Northern Sudan and Egypt.
The lake features swampy vegetation in its southern part, where the Semliki River empties itself. The Rwenzori Mountains, also known as the mountains of the moon, tower to the south while the Blue Mountains of Congo rise in the northwestern shore. The area where Lake Albert is located features low population growth with small settlements at Pakwach and Butiaba, not forgetting Wanseko.
Sir Samuel Baker, a famous big game hunter and explorer, was the first European to encounter Lake Albert and named it after Prince Albert, who was the Consort of Queen Victoria. Though the Congo’s President Mobutu made an attempt to rename it after himself, the lake has maintained its original name. Romolo Gessi is noted to be the first European to Circumnavigate Lake Albert in 1876.
It can be noted that Lake Albert had a well-developed shipping network during the colonial era, as the whites considered adding it to the railway network that they had established to assist them in linking their interests in the East, South, and North Africa. A cargo passenger ship was built in 1930 by the John I.
Thorny Croft & Company shipyard at Woolston, Hampshire, and named SS Robert Coryndon after the British Officer Robert Thorne Coryndon, the governor of Uganda from 1918 – 1922. The historical explorers who had undertaken a safari to Uganda had kind names for this ship. Ernest Hemingway branded it the magnificent on water, while Winston Churchill named it the best library afloat. This ship is recorded to have either sunk in the year 1964 or been scuttled in the year 1962.
