Not quite the Indian version of Wild Hogs. But still a bachelor roadtrip without wives. Three friends getting together from different parts of the country, 13 years after passing out of B. School. To spend a hectic but fantastic week in Pench, Bandhavgarh and Kanha. In a vehicle that lived upto its reputation.
I used a D90 and the Nikkor 70-300mm lens for 99% of the pictures. Didn't want to change lenses in the middle of a safari due to dust. As a result, there are less landscape pics and more of the two legged and four legged kind. All pictures are handheld, and many were taken at 1/25-1/30 secs shutter speed due to bad light.
Meanwhile, reposting part of a post from my ownership thread, since this is a better place for it:
...the vehicle carried itself well in 40-50 degree (in the sun) temperature. Went over 3 horrendous potholes in the night, and 3 huge bumps at speed. Also had to avoid 3 stupid dogs trying to cross the road at the last moment, 2 idiotic goats and one crazy human who decided to cross the barrier and drop down with his scooter at night - after seeing that vehicles were approaching. I have read about Fortuner's so called tendency to flip trying the Moose test, but the evasive maneuvers I had to take were pretty similar to the Moose test.
After the bumps and potholes, I was worried about the alignment, but can't feel any misalignment yet. Heard minor squeaks from time to time, but they went away after sometime - so not sure what caused them, or whether they need to be sorted out. Am at 14K+ km now, will do a general checkup when I hit 15K.
Where the Fortuner shone:
1. Highway cruising. I reached Pench at 8 PM starting from Bangalore airport at 4.15 am.
2. Bad roads e.g. the last few kms to Tala in Bandhavgarh
3. Going through an intense squall - I had faced something like that during the famous Mumbai flood. The 4WD came in handy.
4. Having to offroad when we couldn't find the way to the Bandhavgarh resort at 8.30 in the night. There were 3 different dirt trails with depressions where the headlights couldn't reach, and I wasn't too keen to get down and explore each one on foot with a torch because of two reasons:
- The trails were within 30 feet of the core forest boundary
- There were two human kills by Bandhavgarh tigers in the last one month - the tigers strayed out and killed villagers (small park, big time man-animal conflict with tigers regularly going out and killing cows etc.). I wasn't sure whether our resort was in those tigers' territories
In the end we went on the wrong trail, couldn't find the way back in the night, and had to go over rough terrain to regain the track and regain mobile signal.
We ambushed this tigress at a stream. Before this shot, she was cooling herself in a pool down the rocks, while we were waiting for her in 45 degree heat in an open gypsy. She decided to show up after we were approaching lobster territory - what a sadist! She is the same tigress pictured above who is carrying the Sambhar kill. Anyway, more on her later.
Pench landscape
A curious fawn...if she were human, she would grow up having longer legs than Sushmita or Deepika.
An soaring vulture
Pondering about these idiotic humans who insisted on hanging around him, making strange clicking noises
She couldn't stand the presence of non-horny guys looking at her
Not sure which eagle this is...doesn't look like a Serpent Eagle (this one has white eyes, while the SE has yellow ones). Can anyone identify this bird?
The Barasingha of Kanha
Egyptian Vultures...was guided to this place by Dr. Abheek Ghosh on or way to Bandhavgarh from Pench. Abheek insisted on stopping here - so glad that we did.
Posturing Gaurs. They almost had a fight regarding whose was bigger than whose. The gypsy had to take a U turn in case they couldn't measure properly, and given there was no 3rd party female Gaur to do comparative assessment. They were tearing up clumps of grass and bushes, but thankfully Bos Gaurus chose not to fight. If they had fought and hit the Gypsy, and then vented their anger on us, all would have been toast...or rather, jelly for toast -without giving me a chance to tell them that my vehicle was christened after them.