Day 10 - Hodka - Chhari Dhand - Hodka - Khavda - Kalo Dungar - India Bridge - Hodka - Dhordo - Rann Utsav - White Desert - Hodka - 168 Kms
I woke up very early in the morning and went out in pitch dark carrying a torch (which proved to be very helpful). Found that the jeep was waiting in the resort parking lot. I was cold and I was covered up, but the doors of the jeep were open and as we started moving, I could feel the chill.
05:15 - Left Shaam E Sarhad.
It was pitch dark and we took the road that goes through a small village called Serwo and from there went towards Bhagadiya. Some distance before Bhagadiya, the driver took the jeep off road, and entered the desert. The kaccha road was bumpy at times but not too bad. We could only see what the jeep's powerful headlights fell upon, but the driver seemed to know his way. The night sky was beautiful and I could the stars clearly and even saw a shooting star.
The route taken. The kaccha road we took cannot be shown in google maps, so I have drawn it with a black line.
Finally, about driving for about 20 mins on the Kaccha road, we came to a concrete watch tower and the driver said we had arrived at Chhari Dhand.
06:25 - Reached Chhari Dhand. It was still pitch dark and when I got down from the jeep, I noticed that I was completely covered in dust, courtesy driving through the desert on kaccha road. I took the torch and walked with the driver towards the wetlands, and we could hear the birds making sound. I did not want to go anywhere close in the dark with the torch, as that would have scared the birds away. So we walked back to the jeep, and waited for some light.
Finally, just before 07:00, there was some light on the horizon, and we got out of the jeep and started walking towards the wetlands. We walked about 300 mts, before coming to the edge of the wetlands and could not go any further.
Source - Wikipedia
The Chari-Dhand wetland conservation reserve is located on the edge of arid Banni grasslands and the marshy salt flats of the Rann of Kutch in Kutch District, Gujarat State in India. It is currently legally protected under the status as a Protected or Reserve Forest in India. Chari means salt affected and Dhand means shallow wetland, Dhand is a Sindhi word for a shallow saucer shaped depression. This is a seasonal desert wetland and only gets swampy during a good monsoon, receiving water from the north flowing rivers as well as from the huge catchment areas of many surrounding big hills.
I was a bit disappointed, because the birds were very far and even with full zoom on my 55-300mm, I could not clearly capture any of them. Hence I started taking photographs of the surroundings. The birds were making quite some noise early in the morning.
Some pictures taken at Chhari Dhand before dawn.
As I said, the birds were very far away. So could not take any good pictures of the birds.
This is the concrete watch tower where we parked the jeep. The driver said that they had half abandoned building a hotel.
While taking pictures of the surroundings, we heard a dog barking behind us and he was slowly moving in our direction. The driver picked up a stick from nearby, and I waved my tripod in the air and soon he went the other way.
After taking pictures and watching nature's beauty all around, after half hour, I decided that it was time to move on as the birds were not coming any closer. And just as I was about to leave, I saw the sun coming up and stopped dead at the beautiful sight.
Sunrise at Chhari Dhand
After watching the sunrise, I left from Chhari Dhand as had a full day ahead of us.
07:45 - Left from Chhari Dhand
08:45 - Reached Shaam E Sarhad, Hodka
