Velavdar- Blackbuck Sanctuary

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Alarm went off..

With lots of difficulty I opened my eyes to check the time, It was 3.30 am and as usual I asked my husband to get ready. He warned me to leave without me if I do not get ready in 30 mins. We both were so much sleepy but we decided to leave the house at 4 am no matter what. Fortunately we were in the car exactly at 4 am.



Velavdar is very much famous for Blackbuck Sanctuary, and as far as I know its the only place where you can see hundreds of deers, blackbucks, few migratory birds and wolves. The distance from our home, Vadodara to Velavdar is about 170kms. We left at 4 am and without stopping anywhere we reached there by 7 am. My husband decided to take few pics of sunrise and I took chance to stretch my legs and roam around for a while. I am basically very lazy when it is about getting up early, I cant do anything before having cup of coffee and I made sure to drink large cup of coffee before leaving the house. My husband is always giving me a look, you know what I mean to say when I insist on drinking coffee no matter what the time or place is. Anyways, he clicked his sunrise pictures and we drove towards Sanctuary entry gate.



It was surprising to know that you need to have a guide with you all the time in sanctuary and you can not step out of the car to even take pictures. My husband bought the necessary permits and an old guy from the Sanctuary office accompanied us for the tour. It is compulsory to have your own vehicle for the tour. They do not provide safari or jeep or any transportation. It means if you are on motorbike tour or coming from other cities, make sure you hire a four wheeler for this safari, they do not have any vehicles. We started the tour in the Sanctuary and I started jumping out of excitement to see lots of deers roaming around eating grass, might be breakfast time. That made me hungry. We were already carrying food with us because they do not have restaurant or any cafeteria. We packed few slices of bread and butter along with juices. I would recommend to carry food items which you can eat without heating it up because as the sun is rising the sanctuary area gets very hot and after eating hot food you would not be able to enjoy the tour. We could spot lots of deers and blackbucks along with few different animals. We were told that if we could have arrived an hour before, We could have enjoyed wolves hunting deers. Sunrise makes wolves hide, basically they rest after the hunt.





The tour guide was not very helpful and I could not understand his language, thankfully I knew how to spot animals and birds which helped my husband with his photography. It took about 2 hours in Animal sanctuary and later on we got to know that they have a lake on the other side of park where we can go and spot birds. Without thinking for a second, We left and again the guide was with us. But we did spot about hundred odd flamingos and ducks. The view was awesome, My husband was just standing there peacefully enjoying the nature and I had to take the camera in my hand to get few clicks. Undoubtedly, the view was spectacular..!!





The tour was over in 2.30 hours and we were on our way back home. Suddenly my husband recalled a place which was on our way, Lothal.





Probably the last evidence of Harrapan Civilisation is found at Lothal. My husband was very excited to visit it again ( he had been there before, I guess when he was in school). It is open ground where the Government has set up an office, a small museum and a huge site of Harrapan Civilisation. There are few houses and some other walls, which are called lower town ( as they are 90% buried). You can see few feet of walls and can make out in your mind that there might be a town here. There is also a water well which is empty (obviously) and you can also see drainage line. There is not much to see there but yes, you can say that I had been to the last site of Harrapan Civilisation. This site visit takes 30 mins or so but the structures are still strong and makes us think We were so advanced even then.



The sun was on the top and I started sweating, I told my husband to drive back home as soon as possible. Obviously I was hungry and wanted to go back home and sleep. We then headed back home. Due to less of traffic ( fortunately), we reached home in Two hours. We bought some food from my favourite place as It was my treat from my husband for getting up this early.

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Photos

velavdar
running into the wild..!!