Our journey to the wilderness was a thrilling experience. I and my wildlife enthusiast and photographer hubby left our Panchkula home, Haryana, India by 6.00 am on a Saturday. Drive to the Wild Brook Retreat, located inside Rajaji National park, took around 7 hours.

The route from Chandigarh and Panchkula is via Raipur Rani,  Kala Amb, Nahan, Paonta Sahib, Dehradun, Haridwar, Chilla village and National park.

Drive thru the ghat section of Nahan was good and morning was very pleasant, but too much of dust and pollution as road widening process was on. We took a short break near Nahan at the Bridge view restaurant for breakfast which is an ideal spot for a bird photography. Good decent north Indian breakfast like Poori, Aloo paratha and masala chai or if preferred, continental ones like toast and omelettes are also available. We relished Poori bhaji with masala chai before continuing the journey.

Till Haridwar, the route is clear and well known to most of the taxi drivers. From Haridwar, look out for Bhumanad Chowk. Here, take left turn and cross the bridge  and again take a left which leads to Cheela. The National park is located approximately 16 km from Haridwar. Once you cross the rugged Cheela road and entrance of Rajaji park, you will see the beautiful Cheela dam.  Freshly tarred road leads you to Kaudiya village with canal following on your right side till the village. Here we crossed the canal and drove through unmetalled road for 1 km and took the dirt track on the left leading the riverbed. The drive through rough terrain, rock and stone beds and brooks and streams for 6 to 7 km will take you to the Vindhyavasini temple located on the banks of the Been river, and from here again take a left  and drive another 800 meters to reach the eco-lodge, Wild Brook Retreat, which is truly wild in nature. 

The tiredness of seven hours drive has instantly vanished after seeing the crystal clear streams and vast river bed lined up with deciduous forest and mountain at its backdrop.

After a quick lunch, we left for our nature reserve safari. The safari timings in the park are morning 6.30-9.00 and evenings 2.45-6.00.

The open jeep gypsy safari in rough terrain was really amazing. To our luck, we were the only guests and the entire jeep was for us. Our jeep driver was very accommodative and the entire safari took almost 3 hours and 35 minutes with a lot of stopovers to enjoy the silence of the forest.

Though it’s one of the tiger reserves of India, we could not sight even one tiger in that 3.30 hrs of wildlife chasing journey. The safari starts in vast open land for the first few kilometres and continues in the dry land with rivulets and river bed stones and the last stretch was inside the forest. But in the overall drive we never stepped into deep or thick jungle, the safari ride was more on the periphery of the forest. We could spot Asian elephants, lots of sambhar and Grey Langur. Expected more bird species, but only horn bill, woodpecker, Bee-eater , kingfisher and peacocks were spotted.

After the rough terrain jungle safari, enjoying hot tea with spicy pakoras (Indian fried snack) in front of a bonfire in the middle of the forest was first time experience for us. We thoroughly enjoyed the darkness, sound of cricket and other night species.  After a relaxing and refreshing sleep, woke up in the morning to the inviting music of pretty ones like parakeets, woodpecker and bulbulls.

 The walk on the river bed, streams and the stone beds were a completely different experience from regular trekking. Suddenly noticed 2 Jackal cubs just running across us at a distance. The startled look on their faces gave us an impression that we were clearly intruding their eco space. The morning sun reflecting in the crystal clear water, birds perching from the trees all added glamour to the wilderness.

As always any good weekend journey end with a happy feel and a sad note of getting back to routine popped up in our mind also, but we knew that we will be doing another round of wild journey shortly and that kept us motivated to get back home.