This is it …. the big day. The whole reason we’re on this trip this year …. to see the gorillas.

Mountain gorillas are one of the world’s most endangered species having been hunted to near extinction over the years as well as losing their natural habitat due to mankind. With numbers now in their hundreds they exist only in one small area of Africa, right on the border between Uganda and Rwanda.

We were on the Ugandan side in an area known as the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and in particular a sector known as Rushaga. With a reputation of steep hills to climb and tight, harsh undergrowth to hack our way through we were going to need all our strength just to find them today.

So the pair of us waking up with the squits wasn’t exactly the dream start we’d hoped for!

Overdosing on Imodium we set off in the pitch black with an hour and a half’s drive from Lake Mutanda just to get to the park headquarters. Here we would find out which gorilla family we had been assigned and how far away they were, which could be anything from half an hour to five hours!! With the thought of being an internet sensation for all the wrong reason having diarrhea right in front of a gorilla silverback we hoped it wasn’t going to be the five hour option …..

We asked Ronnie to talk with the park rangers in case there was any way of going to one of the closer gorilla families and thankfully we were assigned the Nshongi family which the night before had been about 2 hours away from the base.

After a briefing with the rangers we drove a little way from the headquarters to our starting point and armed with our walking sticks set off in search of Mr and Mrs Nshongi and their kids!

Our guts had suddenly decided to play ball, but we still paid an extra $15 each for porters to carry our backpacks and supplies. That would end up being a very well spent $15 in the end.

The first half hour or so was lovely open hiking following a river with hills all around us and tall trees. But we knew the easy hiking wasn’t going to last too long and eventually we crossed a fallen tree which lay across the river and there started the real climb, up into the hills and trees.

Suddenly the air was still and humid, the trees and undergrowth were thick and tough to climb through and the gradient was getting steeper and steeper. We were all hot and sticky, but we couldn’t remove any clothes or we’d be eaten alive by the bugs and we even had to wear gloves to protect our hands when holding onto branches and vines as we clambered up some really steep terrain.

After about an hour and three quarters my porter tells me he can hear rangers talking in the distance saying they are with the gorillas, so we knew we were getting close. And thank god too …. we were dripping in sweat trying to climb up this near vertical hillside, slipping in the mud and wet vegetation. No wonder they call this place the Impenetrable Forest!

The guide tells us that the silverback, the alpha male leader, is just on the other side of these bushes and so starts to slowly and quietly machete away the foliage in the way. And when we first see him the first thing he does is charge at us straight away. Thankfully it was just a charge to let us know who is boss and he settles back down, with the guides making low, humming noises which apparently let the silverback know we are not threatening. He still charged us a few more times just to let us know who’s boss.

So, for your $600 park entry fee (yes $600! per person), you get ONE HOUR with your gorilla family, which starts the moment you see them. In this park there are about 15 habituated gorilla families that spend one hour per day with tourists, just once a day, but there are about a further 20 families that are not habituated and never see any tourists, so they try and make the impact on them as small as possible. And I know this whole gorilla conservation thing is a sensitive subject, as the obvious thing would be to say that NO tourists should be allowed to see them ever, but the bottom line is, without gorilla tourism they would probably have been wiped out many years ago. In Uganda alone gorilla tourism brings in about 900,000 people per year, which at $600 a pop is clearly bringing a LOT of cash into the country which go towards the conservation of these amazing creatures.

Over the next 60 minutes we spent time with the whole family. I started with the big silverback then made my way to mum who was quietly sitting on her own and occasionally breastfeeding her youngsters.

It was amazing, we were just a few metres away from them.

I tried my hardest not to live behind the camera lens and to instead try soak it all in. Sod’s law though, one of the times I put down my camera, one of the gorilla babies crawled to the end of a branch and started beating his chest like dad no doubt does when he’s showing everyone who’s boss.

We were transfixed for an hour. I didn’t even notice I was sitting on some sort of fly nest the whole time I watched Mrs Nshongi and her kids. And when the hour was up we said our goodbyes to our new furry little friends and started our way back down the hill.

This is where the porters were invaluable. Apart from having carried our packs and camera equipment they were always there to help you when you had to climb over tree trunks or ford streams along the way. I lost my balance at lease twice and would have fallen down a bank or in the river had it not been for my young lad.

Having crossed the river we reminisced what we’d just experienced as we made our way along the river back to the jeep.

Having received our certificates to prove we’d encountered the gorillas and given out tips to all the guides we headed back to Lake Mutanda with big smiles on our face.

With the sun shining we spent some time by the lake’s edge and having got permission took the drone out for a few passing shots.

We later took a little boat trip around our corner of the lake looking for birds then made it back to the lodge restaurant and bar for some sundowner G&T’s and a bite to eat.

Yeah ….. today was a good day.