Pagal Nallah at 8:30pm Driving such terrain in the night and day is completely different thing.
Now till the nallah road was bad and good in patches, however I tread carefully even on good ones, because a rock on the road would be invisible.
We crossed a couple of bad patches easily without drama.
On the GPS, the road shown was straight, where its supposed to be, however when the track went down, I knew the nallah had come.
Sorry no pics, camera was packed, and my heart was in my mouth
Well as for the Nallah, No circus today.
Straight away as we left the road I engaged 4L.
On the rocky section we would inch down.
With the bumper fogs on and the main lights, visibility was okay, even on the sides, and alowly, we inched down, avoiding the sharp rocks.
We could not see the nallah. But we could hear it. through the open windows came the sound of a torrent. Nothing like what we heart in the morning when the nallah flows like a good boy.
From the sound it appeared more like kempty falls. Looks like it was going to be a rocking time.
Only saving grace, the two consecutive sections of the nallah were such that first was higher than the letter, so the rocky hump would be done downhill, and not uphill.
Soon came the site of the torrent.
There was good news and bad news.
Good news. Instead of 2 sections of nallah it was one section.
Bad news. Actually there was so much water that 2 sections had merged into one, and the water started actually good 4-5 feet before it started in the morning
So two sections with the hump in between allow you a breather, but today, its was one whole nasty river..
This was not going to be easy. Infact I was not even confident of doing it at all!
Time for reco?
Now wanting to get feet wet, I just backed up little so as to sweep the headlight beams all over the obstacles.
Moreover the water was so fast that I was scared of getting swept away!
But based on whatever little water fording experience I had, the white elephant would go through. It takes a lot more than some pagal nallah to sway the 2.5 tonne behemoth.
So it was time to get the continentals wet, as we moved inch by inch into the raging torrent.
Neck craned out, not even halfway through, the wheels were in almost to the center point, and gently on low ratio we crawled through.
Thump, the front tires fell down, we had crossed the first part.
Water is now almost till top of teh tires, and the fog lamps are submerged.
Exhaust is probably under water.
A tap on the throttle, rpm 2500 we crawl through, I can make out the wheels spinning.
Spin-Grip-Spin-Grip and then there is a sideways dance which frankly speaking scared our wits out of us, but the white elephant holds, and and soon we are rising.
Soon the nallah is over and we are on the road to Tangste....
However, its not the last obstacle, as we discovered.....
TO BE CONT............ |