Debasis Bose
06-01-2016, 08:54 AM
Nikon, Nikor 70-200 F2.8, @ 70 mm F 9, ISO 6400, 1/500s
The place is pleasantly beautiful. The only problem is reaching the place is through only one treacherously dangerous hill road and that road is infested with Elephants, as they use this road for movement very frequently. Tourists avoid the area most probably due to this reason and we were only tourist in Sonanadi WLS with one or two day visitors everyday. I was fortunate on the morning of 1st Jan, my family and mother decided not to go for morning safari. I was alone with naturalist and driver, tracking one of the fresh tiger pug marks, when suddenly encountered with the curved tusk musth bull (known to charge on close quarters) with a female. They were also moving in the direction we were and were about 100 m ahead. Our gypsy had just gone about 750 m on slope of the hilly road, with one side steep/almost perpendicular mountain and other side a drop of 25 to 30 m. The tusker seeing us, slowly turned. We knew this tusker was bit rouge in character, so slowly started backing, but the road was not suitable to back. The guide said the driver to reach the bend and back the jeep quickly before the tusker charges. It was freezing misty morning, and we started sweating seeing the bull slowly increasing his speed and approaching towards us. The driver was extremely skilled, somehow, he managed to turn the gypsy in time, by that time the tusker had gathered the momentum and was only about 40-50 m behind. We zoomed away and frankly I missed few beats as it was a very close miss. Tough the guide and the driver said they knew to shoo away elephants but such tricks are not guaranteed.
While returning, I told our luggage jeep to escort us and requested the forest guard to accompany us to the gate, to deal with any such situation.
The place is pleasantly beautiful. The only problem is reaching the place is through only one treacherously dangerous hill road and that road is infested with Elephants, as they use this road for movement very frequently. Tourists avoid the area most probably due to this reason and we were only tourist in Sonanadi WLS with one or two day visitors everyday. I was fortunate on the morning of 1st Jan, my family and mother decided not to go for morning safari. I was alone with naturalist and driver, tracking one of the fresh tiger pug marks, when suddenly encountered with the curved tusk musth bull (known to charge on close quarters) with a female. They were also moving in the direction we were and were about 100 m ahead. Our gypsy had just gone about 750 m on slope of the hilly road, with one side steep/almost perpendicular mountain and other side a drop of 25 to 30 m. The tusker seeing us, slowly turned. We knew this tusker was bit rouge in character, so slowly started backing, but the road was not suitable to back. The guide said the driver to reach the bend and back the jeep quickly before the tusker charges. It was freezing misty morning, and we started sweating seeing the bull slowly increasing his speed and approaching towards us. The driver was extremely skilled, somehow, he managed to turn the gypsy in time, by that time the tusker had gathered the momentum and was only about 40-50 m behind. We zoomed away and frankly I missed few beats as it was a very close miss. Tough the guide and the driver said they knew to shoo away elephants but such tricks are not guaranteed.
While returning, I told our luggage jeep to escort us and requested the forest guard to accompany us to the gate, to deal with any such situation.