Yesterday after lunch we had another 5 hour, 250 km drive North East to Bandhavgarh National Park - the place where, according to Mugdha, tigers will be falling over themselves to be seen by us. Mmmm, we'll see.
The first morning all 4 gypsies were in the same zone, Tala, and we were without anyone who spoke much English. Our two guides rotate around the 4 trucks and sometimes the lodge has a resident naturalist who comes along and when there's no one else the driver usually speaks passable English. Not today unfortunately and whilst we don't expect to go around in a convoy, we still cannot understand how our jeep was so far from the others we missed a tigress and her 3 cubs crossing the road! When we finally arrived, at great speed, we were told that one of the cubs had failed to cross and so everyone was waiting for it. Deepti had words with the driver; whether she was telling him off for missing the sighting or for his aggressive driving we don't know. After a while all the other trucks gave up but our driver persisted in driving up and down a 5km stretch of track hoping to spot the cub - we didn't. By the time we got to the designated breakfast stop it was gone 1030 and no one else was there. The loos were filthy and we were told to hurry up and eat our breakfast as we had to be out of the park by 1115.
The sign at the entrance
Scops Owl in its nest
Lesser Adjutant Stork which surely must be a close relative of the African Marabou Stork
This Rhesus Macaque doesn't look very comfortable.
White Throated Kingfisher
This reminded me of Uluru (not that I've actually seen it!) apparently there is a deserted
fort on the top which dates back to the times when this was the hunting reserve
of the Maharajas of Rewa.
This is the sign as you leave the park!
And that was the total of useable photos from the morning safari. The new lodge (Bandhavgarh Vilas is lovely, the rooms are large and very clean and we even have an outside shower. The staff, from the Manager Vijay down are delightful and the lunch was delicious (nice and spicy again).
This afternoon Deepti joined us and all 4 trucks went to the Maghdi zone - she was confident we'd see tiger. The park guide we picked up was female, she looked a lot younger than her 25 years and she was a lovely girl and I really liked the message on her T-Shirt. But the best thing about her was she was very, very slim and so could squeeze into the truck quite easily (unlike the other day when we had a huge guy who immediately proceeded to man spread as soon as he sat down). Deepti says she always tries to look for a malnourished one!
Once again we were the last of the 4 trucks and the only ones not to see the wild elephants walking to the lake for a swim. In fact Right Place Right Time Rich's truck was apparently charged by one elephant who took exception to it being in the way. This is all we saw and they were a long way off.
As Deepti promised though, we did see tiger; this young female was dozing on the far bank of a water body, some 200+ meters away.
Unfortunately the distance, compounded by the afternoon heat haze and the dust created by the 15 or more trucks that lined up on the track, made for dreadful photos. After an eternity she went through the yawning, grooming prelude to moving and eventually got up - there was great anticipation that she may go down the bank and bathe but quite honestly I thought it was highly unlikely as it was very, very steep. In the end she just wandered off into the bushes which was a bit of an anti climax.
Deepti was very proud of the sighting and I'm sure considered me rather churlish for commenting on the poor photographic opportunity. I do realise this isn't a photographic holiday, thank goodness as it would have cost £££ more.
The same hilltop but from a different angle. Both B and I had tried to stop the truck before we got to this point as we wanted to include the wooden structure in our composition but obviously not as the dominant feature as it is here. Eventually Deepti understood what we were after and told us we'd be back in this zone tomorrow so we could take the shot then - I didn't have the energy to try and explain the difference in morning vs evening directional light to her!
As were heading back to the gate we came across several trucks lined up on a narrow track - another tiger sighting.
It may count towards Naturetrek's 100% record but it doesn't do it for me - sorry!