• Birdwatching - Nature's Wonders - Places - Sanctuaries

    Where Mowgli Roamed – Pench National Park

    As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled Once, twice and again! And a doe leaped up and a doe leaped up From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup. – The Jungle Books, Rudyard Kipling Every morning, Mowgly and his friends perhaps would have woken up to this scene. We too were hoping for the same. The early morning drive from the Maharashtra side of Pench Tiger Reserve to the Madhya Pradesh side of Pench was filled with expectations. Never mind the rattling of the old Toyota Qualis and the chilly wind. We had to cover…

  • Birdwatching - Places

    Karnala Revisited

    One of our early treks was to Karnala. Karnala, with its thump-shaped pinnacle on its top cant be missed when you take the Mumbai-Goa highway. An easy climb. Till the pinnacle. Conquering the pinnacle calls for technical rock climbing. The trek is more interesting as it is through the Karnala Bird Sanctuary. If you can combine early morning, keen eyes, and luck, you will spot many winged creatures. In our first trip we spotted a crested serpent eagle and an owl. This time, on May 1, we decided to celebrate Maharashtra Day by taking an early morning hike through the…

  • Places

    The Rubber Waste Yard at Harihareshwar

    A rubber factory is an unlikely place to be written about in a travel blog. And certainly not a rubber factory in Harihareshwar, a quite village known for its temple and pristine beaches. Harihareshwar for sure did not have a rubber factory. But we did find something closer to that. More like a factory’s waste yard. A little away from the beach, on the rocky coast, we saw loads of abandoned, worn-out, damaged pieces of footwear. Laced with a few plastic bottles as well. Plastic bottles are no surprise, since they already form part of our natural environment, nurtured carefully…