Our driver-cum-guide, John, advised the group to leave early on Sunday morning for the visit to the Eravikulam National Park. The highest point of the Nilgiri Mountain at the Western Ghat Mountain Range reached 8000 feet above sea level. This mountain range is the habitat and sanctuary of the Nilgiri goats, whose famous fine hair from under the neck used to be shaved and used for the making of expensive 'pashminas'. This practice is now banned in order to prevent these rare goats from going into extinction but careful enquiries at the many Kashmiri shops in the towns would usually persuade the shopkeepers to take out their collection of 'real' pashminas from their hidden compartments!
True to John's suspicions, there was already a long queue of domestic tourists waiting for the bus to ferry them up from the entrance to the next station from where the hiking trail began. John bought our entry tickets ( foreigners were charged 200 rupees each compared to locals who only have to pay 15 rupees each). Each camera brought into the park will be charged a fee of 50 rupees each.
The bus ride up to the higher station was in itself an exprience! The road was narrow, bumpy and the ascent was steep. In the bus, our group had the company of an extended family who came from Andhra Pradesh? - apparently about 1000 miles to the north of Kerala. They took 48 hours by train to reach this hill station!
The first half of the ride was through tea plantations ( tea is planted at altitude 4000 to 6000 feet above sea level) but as we reached further up, the vegetation was mostly of shrubs which became thinner as we went higher up to finally end up with rocky walls quite similar to Mount Kinabalu of Sabah or the Table Mountain of Capetown. Despite the bright and sunny day, the temperature was a pleasant and cool 15 degrees celcius which made you not realise how much sun was soaked up during that whole morning.
As a bonus to the hike, we were rewarded towards the end of the hike by a sighting of a Nilgiri goat ( apparently quite rare) who came out to pose for our cameras and to help himself with some of the shoots of the shrubs.
some cows being herded to their grazing plot....tea plantation at lower levels of the park..
4 members of the group at the back of the bus..
the park was clean and litter free...
the view from the top was exhilarating...
a bit like Mount Kinabalu?....
the tea plantations in the valleys..
at last... the Nilgiri goat!.....
4 members of the group at the back of the bus..
the park was clean and litter free...and many posters like the above....
reminding everybody to be good tourists...
the view from the top was exhilarating...
a bit like Mount Kinabalu?....
the tea plantations in the valleys..
at last... the Nilgiri goat!.....
No comments:
Post a Comment