GIR Trip Report part 1

Lovely readers, I hope you are doing great and ready for an upcoming vacation, may Santa gives surprise full of joy to everyone. Santa's surprise will take time but I got surprised well in advance, you must be thinking how/why/what 😂. The answer is the most successful trip of 2019 with a lot of surprise sightings. 

If you remember I had promised that I will give surprise very soon, the indication was to the GIR national park trip. The trip rewarded us with a lot of surprises and turnout as the most successful trip of 2019. Hope 2020 will be more rewarding. So now let us get into the details of the trip in the next section.

Before we start let me tell you that trip report is split into two parts, the beginning of the trip and the end of the trip, both has its own excitement and uniqueness which cannot be completed in one blog hence I am starting with part 1 - the beginning.

Part 1 – the beginning

Before we get into the trip report it is important for you to know is how the trip was planned, it will certainly help you to benchmark the same for your trip planning. After the success of the Pench trip in 2018, we all wanted to repeat the experience once again with other national parks. This is how we started thinking of a place, after various discussions within the team we finalized GIR to meet Lion king This was the first step, decide the place, the next step was to ensure various bookings/permissions for an overall trip; here we handed over the matter to an expert (Saurabh and his team – Mumbai Travelers). Booking was done well in advance; it was closed around four months in advance. The third step was to be on time to travel and enjoy the trip to the fullest. Now let us move to the next section to see what happen when we reached the third step of the plan.

The execution – journey begins

I explained the 3-step theory for planning but when it comes to execution, you just need to forget everything and enjoy every moment thereon. Normally the journey starts with everyone gathering in train but I always tweak it with the addition of madness of food. Since the trip was planned to Gujarat and being Gujarati I wanted to start the journey with "Undhiyu" with this madness in mind some of us reached a special place “Shree Thaker Bhojnalay” for attacking Undhiyu to kick start the trip in true sense.

After having such a fantastic dinner we reached the station to catch the train, we spread the virus of food madness to people who could not manage to join us. So now demand came to target Rajkot station for having typical Gujju food so as they can also enjoy the flavor of Gujarat. The madness of 18 was on high, the food, the laughter, jokes, leg-pulling, etc were an indicator of the successful trip ahead.

With full Dhamal time, we reached Junagadh and then to GIR after having typical Thali and Paan. In normal cases, people prefer to take rest after a long journey of around 16 hours but we are not normal so we had planned a small birding trail to get the feel of wilderness on day 1 itself. The arrangements were in place we just need to get ready in quick time to reach before sunset so as we can get some lights to capture images. The enthusiasm of each one was on high so all were ready to reach the place quickly without keeping in mind the tiredness of train travel. I know you keen to know the experience so let us move to the next section to understand the kind of rewards we had during this trip. 

The beautiful birding heaven

As I said, we opted to start with bird trail on day 1 itself without bothering of rest because the mission was to evaluate wilderness and not the leisure trip. Hitesh Bhai our guide took us to a nearby wetland where we can enjoy and feel it as if we are in heaven. The moment we reached the Mother Nature started showering us with rewards/surprises with some great birds sighting. The list includes – Pied Kingfisher, common kingfisher, green bee-eater, Yellow Bittern (super lucky to get), Swamphen, Jungle babbler, Plum-headed Parakeet, Stonechat and above all the Water King Crocodile (5 in total)

The mood was set with the super sighting of these birds and tempo continued to see more and more birds during the safari as well. With this tempo, we could sight raptors as well. 

The lists of birds sighted during the safari are – 

Spotted owlet (my favorite), Indian scoops owl, a killer look of crested hawk-eagle, Shikra (Saurabh managed kill shots for his gypsy), Ring plover, common iora, Black Redstart female, Grey Wagtail, Grey francolin, rose-ringed parakeet, Tree-pie, Indian paradise flycatcher, peacocks, peahen and many more. We were lucky to sight somewhere around 50-60 birds, leaving you with some pictures in the DSLR section so as you can feel part of our journey.

As I said this is just the beginning of the journey, part II will be shared shortly with the King and its kingdom, so keep following the space for stories that is even more rewarding with fantastic experience, a lot of laughter, exciting stories and lovely pictures.

Vote of Thanks: The blog cannot end without a vote of thanks, the contribution of each one is crucial, without which the journey is incomplete.

The Team –

Amish, Sarang, Sanjay, Ashwini, Preeti, Ratan, Mahesh, KC Subbu, Abhishek, Reshma, Hitesh, Milan, Ashwin, Ankur, Sagar (Wild card entry – star of the trip), Saurabh (wildlife expert) Vishnu (favorite of all) and Bhavesh (BT Wild Art)

Expert

Saurabh and Team Mumbai Traveler – everyone is very happy with the knowledge you shared and helped us with such flawless arrangements. Cheers!

Expert Guide

Hitesh Bhai – Your knowledge and efforts are commendable, your love and passion for wildlife is just unmatched, thank you so much  

Stay and Food – GIR Jungle Lodge

Special thanks to Shree Thaker Bhojnalya for delicious "Undhiyu" and Thali 

A Message of the Day –

No life without Wildlife – Preserve it – Respect it – Enjoy it

Wildlife is Mother Nature’s greatest treasure; to protect it we must take every measure

BT Wild Art

DSLR Section 

Spotted Owlet

Yellow Bittern 

Shikra

Crested Hawk-Eagle

Crested Hawk-Eagle

Indian Scoops Owl

Green Bee-Eater

Pied Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Common Kingfisher

The flying machine  - Common kingfisher

Swamphen

The Water King - Crocodile

Ring Plover

Parakeets 

Grey Wagtail

Female Black Red-Start

Common Iora

Stonechat 

Khoon Bhari Mang wala Croco 😂

Teeter- Grey Francolin 

Yummy "Undhiyu" from Shree Thaker 

Thali  - Shree Thaker

Rajkot local Tava Chai

Jalebi Gathiya Rajkot specialty 

Team GIR 2019