Tour of Uttarakhand - National Chambal Sanctuary

This is Part 1 of our trip.
Part 2 Lansdowne is here.
Part 3 Enroute Joshimath is here.
Part 4 Badrinath is here.
Part 5 Auli - Tapovan - Kanchula Kharak is here.
Part 6 Chopta Tunganath is here.
Part 7 Devariyatal (Deoriatal) is here.
Part 8 Kakdagaad Haridwar is here. 

This was a driving trip from Bhopal to Badrinath and back. This travelogue will take you through the trip in smaller installments since the report is very long.

Day 1

The first leg of the trip was Bhopal to Devri (6 Kms ahead of Morena, near Gwalior). The reason for this fairly obscure destination was the boat safari on the chambal river slated for the next morning. Checked in at the FRH in Devri in sweltering heat. The place was absolutely burning up!! No power that day, though we were told that this was a one off... this generally never happened. When the situation did not improve till late evening and after nightfall, we had dinner at the FRH (which was very good) and decided to fall back to Morena and stayed at the circuit house there.

Day 2

The boat safari on the chambal was mesmerizing to put it mildly!! Our target was the endangered Indian Skimmer and the equally endangered Gangetic dolphin. Got to see them both to our heart's content. The dolphins are majestic creatures and being blind, do their hunting as well as navigation by sonar in the bump on their foreheads... We could not manage any pics since it is very difficult to predict where and when they will surface...

Ghadial

River Lapwing

Magar

The Ghadials and Magars are all around living up to the name of the sanctuary... National Chambal Gharial Wildlife Sanctuary.

Some pics of the Skimmer in Chambal...