Gujarat: Information & Tips

            For stories from my Gujarat trip, read my blogs about GRK, LRK and Velavadar

Travelled in: December 2011 

The overall itinerary:

Ahmedabad – GRK (3 nights) – LRK (3 nights) – Velavadar (3 nights) - Ahmedabad

I travelled with:

Naturalists & wildlife photographers Harsha J & Dilan Mandanna

Greater Rann of Kutch (GRK) - quick facts:

Getting there:

Nakhatrana (Moti Virani, to be precise), our base in GRK, is approx. 400 kms from Ahmedabad and a 7.5 hours (approx) drive away. Ahmedabad is a convenient airport & rail-head. The nearest airport & rail-head to Nakhatrana though, is Bhuj, barely 60 kms (1.5 hours) away. But, Bhuj has less convenient connections than Ahmedabad to the rest of the country.

Mandvi is about 80 kms (2 hours’ drive) from Nakhatrana & doesn’t require a night’s stay. Visit Mandvi in the evening as it has great light then. Sunset on the beach makes for good landscape photographs too.

Accommodation:

We stayed at Jugal Tiwari’s CEDO. It has en-suite accommodation & good local food. Jugal is very knowledgeable & a great guide himself. If he’s unavailable, go with the others in his team. They’re good too. Contact Jugal at: http://cedobirding.com/

Lesser Rann of Kutch (LRK) - quick facts:

Getting there:

Zainabad, our base in GRK, is approx. 115 kms from Ahmedabad and a 2.5 hours (approx) drive away. Ahmedabad is a convenient airport & rail-head. The nearest rail-head to Zainabad though, is Viramgam, barely 50 kms (1 hr) away. But, it has less convenient connections than Ahmedabad to the rest of the country.

Accommodation:

We stayed at Desert Coursers at Zainabad. It has good en-suite accommodation (if a little run down from its glory days) & tasty local food. The safari vehicles here are very run down though & we opted for safaris from Rann Riders at nearby Dasada. Rann Riders have good guides & well-maintained vehicles and we enjoyed the safaris.

Originally, we were supposed to stay at Rann Riders but they’d bumped us off despite prior bookings & re-confirmation, as a large college group had taken up almost all the accommodation. The owner was very apologetic about it & arranged for our safaris with his guides. To be fair to him, ours may have been a rare case as I’ve not heard such complaints about the place. I still think it was unprofessional of them, though. Definitely re-confirm your bookings before you go.

Velavadar - quick facts:

Getting there:

Velavadar is approx. 140 kms from Ahmedabad and a 3 hour (approx) drive away. Ahmedabad is a convenient airport & rail-head. The nearest airport & rail-head to Velavadar though, is Bhavnagar, barely 1 hour away. But, Bhavnagar has less convenient connections than Ahmedabad to the rest of the country.

Accommodation:

We stayed at the Forest guest-house. It has basic en-suite accommodation & basic local food but makes for a great base as it is near the park entrance. Another stay option at Velavadar is the Blacbuck Lodge.

General Tips: 

• Carry a lens with longer focal length than 300mm. In the Rann, since you have very little cover, you cannot get too close to the bird or animal. In this scenario, I missed having a longer lens. At 300 mm, I didn’t have adequate zoom (despite using a body with a cropped sensor). 400mm or more would be ideal. At LRK, only the Wild Asses & Flamingos allowed us to come a bit close; that too, because we lay still for a while.
• Gujarat can be surprisingly cold in winter. Carry woolens, including gloves. This will keep your hands warm and help you click photos easily.
• You can lie down on the Rann to click photos from a low angle. Wear an easy-to-clean jacket so that you can dust yourself off.
• Carry a cloth to throw over your camera gear. Everything gets covered with a fine, white dust. Including your hair! Wear a cap or drape a scarf over your head.