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After not being able to book train tickets to go up to Corbett Park we spoke to our driver and decided that our only option to see tigers in our short time left in India was to extend our tour and go to Ranthanbhore national park back in Rajasthan.
The day we arrived in Ranthanbhore park was the hottest day so far with temperatures as high as 48 degrees Celsius. You could fry and egg on the top of the car!! After checking into the Tiger Safari resort we spoke to other travelers and realized that the best way of getting on a safari was booking through the hotel. So we secured our place for the morning safari for 700 rs (£9.00) each.
The next morning we were up at 5am to go on our Tiger Safari. We headed into the park and literally within the first 10 minutes of our 3 hour safari the jeep suddenly stopped. We reversed back and the driver pointed to our left and there she was a beautiful tigress striding up the path and marking all of the trees with her scent. We headed down the same path and were literally within
2 meters of one of the greatest big cats in the world. At that moment the cameras started clicking as there were 5 of us in the jeep including Mark the guy we ran into in Udaipur and Pushkar and two Irish girls. We were all amazed by what we were seeing, she walked past the jeep and lay down on the corner of the track as if to say, “Go on here’s your chance to take pictures of me”. She then got up and walked along the dirt track gracefully turning her head when she saw deer who were barking their distress call. However she didn’t seem interested. Altogether we followed her for about 30 minutes until she headed off the track into the scrubs. Lucky, lucky, lucky our driver kept on telling us. As lucky as we were we couldn’t help but think how easy it was.
After returning to our hotel we were satisfied that we’d seen what we came for and after talking to our driver we arranged to leave the next morning as it’s quite an expensive place and nothing to do except for going on safari’s.
We decided to do one more
safari that afternoon as we were hoping to see the 3 tiger cubs that they currently have in the park. We were in the jeep again with the 2 Irish girls and this time two Scottish guys who had been on a morning safari in another jeep and hadn’t seen anything and were very jealous that we had seen a tiger.
On this safari we went on a different track up through the mountains. We didn’t see much apart from different species of deer, peacocks, baby crocodiles and birds until the safari was almost over. When we went to the checkout post the official told us that there had been a leopard spotted just around the corner. The driver raced over to that area where there were two other jeeps. We saw a few movements around the bushes and reversed back to where it was heading. All of the jeeps came to a stop and I happened to turn my head at the right time and saw a big leopard run across the road to the thick bush on the other side. As everyone else was looking the other way I was the only one that saw it.
We
consider ourselves very lucky to have seen a tiger on one safari and for me to see a leopard on the other one although I didn’t get a photo of the leopard as she was too fast. However we are going to Yale National park in Sri Lanka soon where they have a lot of Leopards so hopefully we'll get some photos then.
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Gill Beryl's friend!
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WOW!!
I am really enjoying following your travels... What an experience for you. Glad you are both feeling well again.