Ranthambore National Park
We arrived at our hotel close to the National Park at about 2pm on Saturday, settled in, then went on a guided nature walk around the hotel’s lovely 20-acre grounds at 4.30pm and joined a talk on tigers at 7pm before enjoying our dinner.
Next morning, Sunday, we were up early and set off for our first jungle drive of the day at about 06.45. Our first objective was to try and see tigers, which are most active first thing in the morning before the heat builds up. We set off in our jeep, with driver and guide, armed with blankets and a hot water bottle and various provisions supplied by the hotel.
The park extends across 1,700 square kilometres and is currently home to about 75 tigers. There are now 56 tiger parks in India. Ranthambore was one of the first 9, created in 1973 as part of Project Tiger, a conservation project to preserve and grow tiger numbers in India after they had fallen from roughly 100,000 a century ago to little more than 1,000. There are now nearly 4,000 tigers in India and with new reserves being created and existing reserves being expanded the hope is that numbers will continue to rise.
Tourists are only allowed to access about 20% of the park area, and only 140 vehicles are admitted each day. The accessible area of the park is divided into 10 zones with 14 vehicles in each. Given that tigers are territorial and that only 20% of the reserve is open to tourists there are probably only about 15 tigers across all 10 zones, so the chances of seeing a tiger are variable. We met one couple who had been on 3 jungle drives and seen none, and another couple who had been on 1 jungle drive and seen 5!
We were lucky. We came across two tigers quite quickly, males about 18 months old, who were very playful and lovely to watch. Jeeps are not allowed to leave the park tracks so we were probably no closer than 50 metres from them, but we were able to follow them for about 30 minutes before setting off to see other things. My best two efforts in terms of trying to catch them on an iPhone camera below.
Loads of other interesting wildlife to see in the park - including spotted deer…
…sambar deer…
…antelope…
…ruddy shelducks, lapwings and ibis…
…fruit bats…
…kingfishers galore…
…and langur monkeys.
Back for a late breakfast at around 11am, an hour by the pool and then out again early afternoon for our second jungle drive of the day. No tiger sightings this time but lots more to see, this time including a dusky eagle-owl, crocodiles, turtles, and a wild boar with seven young.
The park itself is beautiful - a mix of deciduous forest, grassland, wetlands and lakes all set within the Aravali hills. Some landscape shots below, with the afternoon light as the sun set particularly striking. The building in the second photo is the hunting lodge from which the late Queen Elizabeth shot a tiger in the early 1960s - we have seen a photo of that but it’s obviously a bit of history that’s rather air-brushed from the royal record these days!
A more leisurely start this morning, then off to visit Ranthambore fort - the second of the 6 hill forts of Rajasthan that are UNESCO listed that we are visiting on this trip and number 2 in terms of size after Chittorgarh. Not as spectacular as Chittorgarh, but some lovely views out over the national park.
We need a bit of ‘down-time’ now so heading to the pool for a relaxing afternoon’s reading and swimming before our departure for Jaipur tomorrow morning.
