The Source of the Nile

A short boat out to the line where Lake Victoria ends and the longest river in Africa begins — then the gardens, the Speke monument and the Gandhi memorial on the bank.

The boat takes about twenty minutes to reach the point. You can see it before you get there: the lake water is still, and then there is a seam where the current takes hold and everything starts moving north. Springs push up from the riverbed and break the surface. The boatmen cut the engine and let you sit in it for a while.

On 28 July 1862 John Hanning Speke reached this spot and settled an argument that had run through European geography for most of the century. He named the drop Ripon Falls. The falls themselves went under in 1954 when the Owen Falls Dam was built downstream — what you see now is deep, fast water rather than a cascade — but the line where the river begins has not moved.

On the east bank the Source of the Nile Gardens hold the Speke monument and a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, a portion of whose ashes were immersed here in 1948. It is a quiet couple of hours and it costs very little, which is exactly why so many people skip it. We think it is the right way to start a week in Jinja: stand at kilometre zero first, then go and get thrown down the rapids.