A Kutchi Summer day 4- The diary

They were flowering everywhere. Doodla?, the guides said. Used to make junior cricket bats (not strong enough for the pro ones) As per Dr Rajaram via Mr Ramanan, it is Wrightia tinctoria, the indigo tree. Doodhi, not Doodla)

The Rainbow hotel beds were obviously not made for comfort, and with much groaning and moaning, I made my way towards the loo, in order to complete my morning ablutions. Ablutions done with, there was tea. Tea done with, there was the ride. I'll start from there as the tea was a very routine affair by now.

Adhi, Dhanush, Chandru and me joined Dhruva and Vijay uncle for the ride. The 4 of us juniors shared 4 cameras and not much bird identification expertise. Therefore, Vijay uncle and Dhruva were relied upon completely.

In a short while, a lion was spotted wandering in a nullah.
Adhi, even after much pointing and binocular viewing, was unable to spot the creature, and became the local laughing stock for a bit. After following our fellow Chennai-ites around for a bit, news passed on that Vikas' jeep had seen 3 leopards. Jealousy can very easily turn the least bothering people into the most vigilant and perseverant.

This very same quality overcame our jeep, and silence reigned for the next hour, as everyone kept their eyes doubly peeled for the leopard. To our credit, we came close. Twice. We heard alarm calls and all that jazz. We also saw the monkeys that had seen the leopard. To our discredit, the jeep in front of us saw it. Grumbles abounded as we thought we had been cheated. Wild boar at a water-trough. They fled soon after.

Sambar - we saw more here than at any other sanctuary that we've been to.

Towards, the end of the journey, all enmity, envy and jealousy were forgotten and a cunning story was concocted to show our superiority to Vikas. And of course, being us, the story was completely unbelievable! To my memory, it ran something like this: We saw the leopard and jackal playing cricket. Upon the discovery of their activities, the chital berated them, only to be berated itself by the lion who said no animal would scold another under his watch. You have to admit, its brilliantly ridiculous!

So, we reached the hotel to find the little prodigy loudly proclaiming his achievements of the day. (See how competitive we were?!!) This lent a lot of feeling to our storytelling, and by the time we were done, all the parents were staring very dubiously at us. Shortly after our story was exposed as a sham, breakfast was had and bags packed for our move to the Lion Safari resort, where we would complete our stay.

Jeeps loaded, we waited impatiently for the drivers to show up, because the jeeps were standing in the sun. Adhiaman, after a lot of pleading and persisting, was sent to find a driver, after having being taught two Hindi words 'Driver Bulana'. He walked off gamely, only to come back with a bewildered look on his face. His reply, 'Aunty, avan reply pannitan', had everyone in splits and was the punch line of the anti-Hindi movement for the next few days.

The driver soon arrived and we were off to Lion Safari, where it was tented accommodation with AC. And showers, believe it or not! So once we reached, rooms were slowly allocated, as guests were yet to leave some of the rooms. Once settled and lunched, the kids hit the games room and pretty much stayed there until it became time for the evening safari. The Lion Safari campus, with mango trees. The tents were on either side. My mom saw the trees full of mangoes, and pleaded with the chef to give us mangoes, so they cut a few and made us some salad!
The view from the resort down to the Hiran river. Nice area. My mom was always birding here, and I was in the games room to the right, playing billiards, or some form of it anyway!

A little temple on the other side of the river
A croc slithers into the water. Good thing it didnt decide to come the other way!
Cattle egret in breeding plumage posed for me (on the river bank).
Gir cattle - a subspecies of Indian cows. We went for a walk along the river's edge.
The Hiran river - upstream. With a check dam. This is where the crocs are.

Downstream where people were happily washing clothes, so I suppose no crocs.

The kids, after loud protestations, got ourselves our own jeep. And Bikku. Note to all those concerned:Bikku was the unofficial local head of the lion spotters union. So off we went with everybody following us. Round and round we went, with me spotting my Afirst Jackal.Even the chital thought we were crazy
Jackal!

Finally we reached a portion of the forest where four lions were snoozing. Of course, word having spread, all the tourists in Gir were at the spot and the forest guard was rationing time between jeeps which led to much Gujarati we did not understand between Bikku and said guard, and the photos posted earlier. All of us were now suitably happy and drunk with success, headed back, with only detours to see a CH Eagle nest and to go shopping at Sinh Sadan, the forest department headquarters. Hats, shirts and other paraphernalia purchased, we headed back to Lion Safari, to freshen up, play some billiards, and have some dinner.
The Sinh Sadan

P.S.: The story told to the parents was that we had seen four leopards, since the kiddy story would not not fool them. Also there was a CSK match that afternoon, which led to the gathering of cricket watchers in the games room after the evening ride. Since we had seen enough lions, mummy, me and some of the others hatched a plan to visit the historic town of Junagad the next day.