The Wild Trilogy of Gujarat

Three animals that live nowhere else in quite this way: the khur on the salt of the Little Rann, blackbuck on Velavadar’s savannah, and the Asiatic lion in the teak of Gir. Nine days…

Length: 9 days, 8 nights
From: ₹2,15,000 per person
Pace: Active
Stops: 5
Best months: November to March

The route

5 stops over 9 days

Ahmedabad
Dasada
Velavadar
Gir
Bhavnagar

Indian wild ass on the Little Rann’s cracked salt
Blackbuck leks at Velavadar, the densest population in India
Two thousand harriers dropping into the grass at dusk
Asiatic lion on the Sasan routes at first light
A dawn pol walk through Ahmedabad’s carved timber quarters

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 9 days
Stops: 5
Pace: Active
From: ₹2,15,000

1

Ahmedabad

Arrive Ahmedabad

Most inbound flights reach Ahmedabad before dawn or late at night; either way your room is held from the previous evening. The House of MG stands opposite Sidi Saiyyed’s stone jali, the screen carved as a tree that the city put on its own emblem. Sleep first. Then a late lunch of undhiyu and a slow look at the old gates.

Night: The House of MG, Ahmedabad
2B L D

Dasada

Pols, then the Little Rann

A two-hour heritage walk at seven through the pols — carved timber havelis, bird feeders on tall poles, a Jain temple opening for the day. Adalaj’s stepwell on the way out of town, five storeys down into the cool. By four you are at Dasada, and the first drive takes you onto the salt flat as the light goes flat and orange.

Night: Rann Riders, Dasada
3B L D

Dasada

Khur on the salt flat

The Indian wild ass — khur, Equus hemionus khur — survives only here, some seven thousand of them across 5,000 square kilometres of cracked salt. They run at forty miles an hour and will not let you close. Between herds: cream-coloured coursers, MacQueen’s bustard if the day is kind, and Agariya families raking salt by hand.

Night: Rann Riders, Dasada
4B L D

Velavadar

South to the grasslands

Four and a half hours down through Viramgam and Dhandhuka, the land flattening into Bhal country. Velavadar is only 34 square kilometres of savannah grass and it holds the densest blackbuck population in India. The evening drive is for the rutting leks, where males hold small patches of ground and posture at each other until the light goes.

Night: The Blackbuck Lodge, Velavadar
5B L D

Velavadar

Wolves at dawn, harriers at dusk

Out at first light for Indian wolf and striped hyena along the boundary track. By mid-morning the blackbuck stand in heat haze so thick they seem to float. The evening is the real point: between December and February up to two thousand montagu’s and pallid harriers drop into the grass to roost, the largest such gathering known anywhere.

Night: The Blackbuck Lodge, Velavadar
6B L D

Gir

West to the Gir forest

Five hours through Amreli and Dhari, groundnut fields giving way to teak and flame-of-the-forest. Gir is the last wild ground of the Asiatic lion — 674 at the most recent census, from twenty in 1913. You arrive by mid-afternoon. The evening is free: a walk toward the Hiran river, then sev tameta and bajra rotla for dinner.

Night: The Postcard in the Gir Forest, Sasan
7B L D

Gir

Asiatic lion, Sasan zone

Two permits, two routes, two quite different hours of light. Lions here are smaller and shaggier than African ones, with a belly fold and a thinner mane, and the prides are looser. Route eight runs past Kamleshwar dam where marsh crocodiles haul out and Indian eagle-owl sit on the escarpment. Chowsingha too, and Maldhari cattle camps in the forest.

Night: The Postcard in the Gir Forest, Sasan
8B L D

Bhavnagar

Last safari, then Bhavnagar

A final dawn drive, then four hours east through Palitana, where 863 Jain temples crown Shatrunjaya hill and pilgrims climb 3,750 steps before the heat. Nilambag was the Maharaja’s own house and still feels like it — mango trees, marble floors, a long pool. Late afternoon in Victoria Park for painted storks and a fair chance of jungle cat.

Night: Nilambag Palace, Bhavnagar
9B

Bhavnagar

Depart Bhavnagar

An hour before breakfast at Gaurishankar lake, where pelicans and bar-headed geese sit on the far bank through winter. Then the short run to Bhavnagar airport for the flight to Mumbai or Delhi — or three and a half hours by road to Ahmedabad if your connection prefers it. This is the departure day, and the trilogy is complete.

Night: Departure day — no overnight