Explorer starts 805km Baker trail trip

Mr Julian Monroe Fisher will conduct the expedition in conjunction with the descendants of Sir Samuel Baker. Photo by Martin Ssebuyira 

By  Martin Ssebuyira

In Summary

The journey dubbed the ‘Great African Expedition’, will involve using bikes, boats and walking from January 8th to February 28th and placing marks on several location along the trail

Kampala- Explorer Julian Monroe Fisher, in conjunction with descendants of Victorian explorer Sir Samuel Baker yesterday started travelling through the ‘Samuel Baker trail’ from Gondokoro in Juba, South Sudan to Baker’s view overlooking Lake Albert in Uganda in a move to promote the trail as a key tourist destination.

The 805 journey that is dubbed the ‘Great African Expedition’, will involve using bikes, boats and walking from January 8 to February 28 and placing marks on several location along the trail, including Baker’s View where Samuel Baker stood and named Lake Albert after a United Kingdom prince.

“We hope to place historical markers at locations where Sir Samuel and Lady Florence Baker camped while on their two expeditions in 1860s and 1870s,” Mr Fisher told journalists before setting off on Tuesday.


Although South Sudan is now unstable after a war broke out three weeks ago, Mr Fisher says he has contacts of people who will guide him through safe places until he reaches Nimule.

Mr Fisher said the Royal Geographical Society accredited him and his team to correct maps of Uganda by establishing the true location of Baker’s View, the location where Sir Samuel Baker became the first European to see Lake Albert and to subsequently name the lake after Prince Albert.

“Sir Samuel Baker and Lady Florence Baker’s achievements are to be commemorated by the establishment of a trail through South Sudan and northern Uganda to Baker’s View of Lake Albert,” he added.

Mr Fisher, who said the great grandchildren of Samuel Baker are already in Uganda to join him in the expedition, added that trail follows the shoreline of Lake Albert northwards to the Victoria Nile and the Murchison Falls and up River Nile to the Karuma Falls.

Mr Fisher said: “It will take energy, determination and resources to achieve this. Our example is Sir Samuel Baker, so we are sure it will come about.”

He said the Bakers are respected in South Sudan and Uganda for their 1860s and 1870s expeditions and their effort to abolish the slave trade.

mssebuyira@ug.nationmedia.com