Day Seven

 

The area we covered that day was steep and exciting

It seemed like today was luxury day! As I woke, I heard Hira Lal’s voice outside taking my name. I opened the door to find him there with a kettle of his delicious hot tea. I thanked him profusely and then woke Sanjay up to morning bed tea. He could hardly believe it either. After that it was a quick change and then we were off with Ram Singh and a young helper, Narain, employed just for the census. This time Ram Singh had a pleasant surprise planned for us. Another new route! We went upriver the usual way till the first bend. Then he said we were going to trek up the steep dry rainwater stream that came down the opposite hill at this point. This stream was obviously a favourite route of tigers as we had spotted the maximum number of pugmarks during this trip at it’s exit. The trek was terrific.

There were tall trees and steep hillsides on either side of the stream with many overhangs and jutting rocks. This was definitely big cat territory. We heard a few very frantic warning calls made by a sambar but they were from much further up the hillside to our left. It started raining just as we decided to turn back and we took shelter under a small overhanging rock. More for our cameras than for ourselves. Soon we were heading down and being a little careless, I even bumped my zoom lens against a protruding root. On the way down we heard a strange sound and wondered what it was. On looking around we saw a huge tree that looked quite alright from the outside but was a blazing inferno inside. That was quite an amazing sight. We didn’t see any fresh pugmarks on this trek. More due to the terrain I think. Sanjay and I felt this route had been chosen more as a bonus for us than for really looking for pugmarks this time. We really appreciated it. This route also proved to by an excellent area for bird watching and we came back with many species to check out in our reference books.

We got Suresh to cook the packet of tomato soup we’d carried and really enjoyed the lumpy result. Then it was lunch and a little bit of rest as we were told we would be going for a second trek in the evening. This time all the way down to Sarapduli. We relaxed and then prepared for the trek, which began at 4pm. It was a brilliant trek with lots of muggar and gharial sightings. Two bends beyond Croc Pool we came across our first set of fresh pugmarks. They were really fresh!! The water still hadn’t seeped out of some of them! We all looked around but could see no other trace of the tigress. It was the same one that had walked past our loghut the other night. Initially Sanjay and I thought we, along with one of the other guys, would conceal ourselves and wait while the others went up to Sarapduli and returned. Then the idea was vetoed and we all carried on together. We were quite a large party this time. All the guys had come along and we were a large group of 7 people. We reached Sarapduli in good time and most of us waited below the main rest house while Ram Singh went and completed some work he had with someone there.

On the way back, a couple of hundred yards from Sarapduli itself, we spotted a huge croc on the opposite bank. We got as close as possible and got some excellent shots.

We spotted a huge croc just a couple of hundred yards from Sarapduli

Then it was an uneventful trek until we got to the area in which we’d seen the pugmarks. A surprise awaited us there! Right in the middle of some of our footprints were the pugmarks of the tigress we’d been looking for! She had followed us for a while and then crossed over to the opposite bank. A little further I spotted some lapwing eggs among the stones.

I wouldn't have noticed these well camouflaged Lapwing eggs if it hadn't been for the frantic mother trying to divert our attention from them

They were amazingly well camouflaged. We carried on to croc pool after taking a snap. At Croc pool Sanjay and I decided to stalk and creep up to as close as we could get to the gharials to get a good photo. Our aim was to get to the huge rock overlooking the pool and take some snaps from it without disturbing the reptiles below. We succeeded in reaching the rock without scaring off our subjects but that was about all.

We don’t who they saw but all we heard was a loud hiss and then a big splash of water as they dived in. Dejected but not without hope we headed back for Gairal. All this was forgotten as we rounded the next bend and once again came face to face with our good friend, the makhna. He was at quite a distance though and we managed to cross over to the opposite bank and walk through completely burnt hillsides to get back to our huts.

We spent the evening as usual on the balcony. Today we had an early dinner after some nice hot soup and then decided to hit the sack. Nothing moved outside except the porcupine rummaging through the leaves below our window.