Sunday 13th April 2025

Day two here in Pench, and already we're back from this morning's safari.

Up 15 minutes earlier to ensure we were ready and waiting when the gates to the reserve opened at quarter to six.

Despite it being twenty five degrees, it felt cool to us. Maybe even cold.

The sun had yet to rise, and the forest lay in shadow.

Soon the sun rose, and went deeper and deeper, but saw more of the usual things: deers, jackal, monkeys, boar, various birds. But no tigers or leopards.

Yet.

Round and round we went. Up and down we went.

Finally, a lone male was spotted down by the lake, and all jeeps made their way there. But the long grass meant few saw anything of the distant tiger, but we knew where it was as it was being shadowed by three Government elephants.

Yes, you read that right.

After nearly 90 minute waiting, we went for breakfast, and we pondered our luck.

Or lack thereof.

So, for the final hour we went back to the main-made lake, and over on the far side were two tigers, on bathing the others pacing about in the trees just above the other.

Then a third appeared near to us on the other side of the bank. This was after the wardens had moved some of the ones at the front on.

It skirted round us, so I got some fine shots as it growled its way past us and to meet up with the two beside the lake.

By that time, our permit was nearly out, so we made our way back to the gate and then to the resort for a well-earned lunch.

You don't need to be told what lunch was, I guess.

After a long and lazy afternoon, we went back out at half three for the gates to reopen at four.

We saw little new, but ever time you enter a National Park, you never know what you're going to see.

We took the main route to the lake, and stayed there for best part of two and a half hours.

Birds and deer were making a lot of warning signs, though there were no signs of tigers.

We waited.

News came that a female had been seen deep in the woods, walking towards the lake.

We waited.

Suddenly she appeared, waking out of the woods and down the bank into the water, where she bathed for ten minutes.

She got up, and walk to across to the next bank, and across another inlet, before walking back up the back and into the woods.

We still waited.

Half an hour later she called to her mate, over and over again, with her roars echoing through the wood.

He appeared.

He also took a bath, but in more mud as his rear half was mostly brown.

He ambled along the far back of the lake, stopping to smell every tree stump, and those he thought worthy, he sprayed.

Time and time again he sprayed, until he was on the opposite bank of the inlet to his mate, and.

And I would like to tell you what happened, but our permit ran out, and with the rangers on patrol, we had to make our way to the gate, all the way round the route, taking nearly an hour as the quick way back was blocked with other jeeps.

It was getting dark by the time we left the park, and the wedding in the resort next to ours was just entering its second day, we glimpsed a pink and yellow pavilion as we sped past, and loud music boomed out. By Monday lunchtime, the wedding has been going on for 72 hours non-stop, and still the music carries on, though a fleet of buses is waiting on the road to take guests back to the city.

Dinner again at eight, with another curry buffet. As nice as the food is, we are beginning to crave something familiar.