Nyero Rock Paintings

This week we went for a drive to visit the Nyero Rock Paintings. They're about an hour and a half away from Sipi, on the road from Mbale to Soroti.

The area is amazing - rocks and boulders litter the earth - red aloe plants cling to the rock and tucked away amongst all this are three sites of ancient rock art.

This is the view from the third set of rock art - this whole area is like this - an amazing place that would be really cool to spend a few days camping, exploring and bouldering - if you don't have a tent you can just sleep under the overhanging rocks!

This Aloe grows all over the place and gets huge!

This is the first site the guide takes you to. A few sets of circles and a crocodile on this one, plus some more recent 'art' that the kids have drawn on with chalk.

The second site has the most drawings - a lot of them badly faded, but very cool - lots more sets of circles and a couple of canoes are on this one. The guidebooks don't hold much data on the origins of this rock art - all they can say is it is at least 300 years old and probably much older. Our guide William had some theories, and also told us that archaeologists had been here and found human remains as well as other artifacts which they took away to be analysed. They are still waiting for the results, and so when we learned that these archaeologists came not recently but in the 1940's, we decided those results probably are not ever going to come! Another classic African story!!

The third site has just one drawing - but it was my favorite - this Sun and Moon drawing is on the ceiling of a low cave in the side of the rock. You have to lie on your back to see it.

-The Sun and Moon drawing at the third site.-

After visiting the Nyero rock art we drove a little further down the road to look for the paintings at Ngora on 'Tank Rock'. We were losing light as it approached sunset but we found what we thought was the site. The rock itself is awesome - sat on top of a big rock platform it is an impressive setting to watch the sun go down.

-The edge of Tank Rock and a view of lake Kyoga in the distance-

-The kids like to play up for the camera here-


-Ancient and Modern scribblings collide-

The Rock art on Tank Rock was hard to find - mostly because the whole rock was covered in horrible recent scribblings - the worst kind of graffiti - not something we were expecting to find in rural Uganda. We eventually did find it, literally having been painted over with mindless nonsense. What a shame!

Well, it was a fun afternoon adventure and it's well worth a visit if you're in the area.

Photo's copyright Will Clark.