Dudhwa Diary - Day Three

Today being the last day of our trip we woke up a bit late knowing that we have already achieved the goals we had set for ourselves before embarking on the trip. The day ahead was going to be a long day , as we had to drive back to Lucknow and it is a drive of about 250 Kms. from Dudhwa.

Planning for the day we decided to head again for the grasslands with no specific objective in mind just hoping to have glimpses of the wild at its natural best and utilize the available time in the best possible manner.

The road we took was full of long tufts of grass as no vehicle had passed the road for a long time and it was growing unfettered , sometimes coming up to the windscreen obstructing our view of the road ahead . It was dangerous driving as with limited view you don't know what lies ahead. Somehow we managed to transverse that strip vowing not to repeat the feat again.

But our guide was in a different mood today and wanted to provide us a rare treat of confronting the jungle which might be unforgiving at times . He took us into a jungle road which was not travelled since last few days. The initial drive was smooth but gradually we started negotiating a road which was covered by a thick blanket of fallen leaves it was so thick that the leaves started sticking to the underside of our vehicle and after sometime we could smell something burning, this was due to the friction of the leaves with the axle of the car and we had to frequently stop and clear the stuck leaves from the underbelly of the car.
As we moved further there were fallen trees lying on the road every time we encountered them we had to get down and clear the road ahead.At one point Baddal spotted pugmarks and told us they were fresh which meant a tiger had just crossed the road which was a warning sign for us and warranted us to be careful while going about our tasks.

As we proceeded further the situation became grim as lots of fallen trees and their branches had to be removed and the task was becoming tiring and we were getting desperate to get out of the logjam , then the we faced the mother of all problems on the road ahead lay two huge trees which were impossible to remove physically and a wayout had to be immediately found the only solution we could think of was to prepeare an alternative road and we got down to working on the same gameplan and after a lot of effort we were able to build a small road and finally we were able to reach a safe destination thanking our stars .
After this we were in no mood to proceed further and decided to leave the park in the afternoon for the purpose we came back to the log huts to gather our luggage and rest for a while before taking the journey back home. After resting for a while we bade goodbye to the staff at Sathiana and started our journey back home . Covering a distance of about 100 to 200 meters from the spot we were staying on the road surrounded by thick vegetation , suddenly Baddal our hawkeyed guide who could spot tiger pugmarks from a moving vehicle asked the driver to stop the vehicle and reverse. We were not very much interested in seeing what was his object of interest we thought it was probably a bird or a specie of deer which we had spotted umpteen times and were not really interested in the sigthing, then as the vehicle came to the site we heard the word 'Tiger' .We could hear whispering from Baddal directing the driver on how to position his car . Then an awe inspiring scenario unfolded before us it was something we would remember for the rest of our lives it was a tiger sitting behind the bush surveying the movements on the road.It was hardly at a distance of ten meters from where our car was parked and looked majestic and grand. We got some video footage of the moment as due to a tree and bushes the view was obstructed. Tiger sat there for sometime and had a good look at us then it got bored and left us gawking at him.

This was the perfect finish we could have hoped for and then we bade goodbye to baddal our guide at the park thanking him for making our visit memorable and promising to come back again we started our journey back home carrying fond memories of Dudhwa.