Wild and Historic
Part Three of Three of the Column_M and MotorScribes Tour of Gujarat with a Jeep Compass.
Distance traveled: 438km. Chotila – Junagarh – Sasan Gir – Veraval – Rajkot
Photos by Ishaan Bhataiya and Bhuvan Chowdhary
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With the North covered, it was now time to head towards the southern coast of Gujarat. Our route would cut right through the middle of the dry state, going through cities that were more than 2000 years old and landing at sea ports that were made before the country was colonised by the Portuguese. With about 1,200kms covered in the Jeep Compass since leaving Pune about five days ago, the thought of our tour coming to an end was slowly creeping in. It was a strange feeling though, as my body wasn’t able to tally the total distance covered to the stress levels. Part of it was due to the Compass’ high seating which helped hugely in driving stress-free while sitting perched on top of busy traffic in Ahmedabad, while the rest, was due to the Compass’ brilliant suspension setup that manages to keep the 1.6 ton SUV flat around the faster corners and straights, with minimal body roll despite the varying road conditions generally experienced on Indian highways.
We start early morning from Chotila, a small temple town near the city of Rajkot and move southwards towards Gir National Park, while stopping over at some interesting places. After a nights halt, we would turn back and head to Rajkot for our final day in Gujarat.
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- Early morning good luck charm just outside Chotila.
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- We stopped over, inpected his carriage, and try negotiating our good luck and well-being with the pleasant man on a horse chariot.
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- good luck is with us now…
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- We pressed on South till we reached Junagarh, one of the very few places in the country where you can actually drive all the way up to the centre of the historic town, right up to the Uperkot Fort.
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- Girnar Mountain is the only mountain in this otherwise flat land for miles, visible from the top of the Uperkot Fort
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- The Uparkot Fort is situated on a plateau in the middle of old Junagarh City and was originally build by the Mauryan Dynasty around 319 BCE
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- After a brief stop over at the Fort we continued towards Sasan Gir a village at the boundary of yet another protected wildlife sanctuary, the Gir National Park
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- Unfortunately, private vehicles aren’t allowed here. So we parked the Jeep Compass and headed into the 1,412 sq.km national park in their safari vehicle.
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- Gir is littered with more than 2,345 species of fauna, of which the axis deer is one of the most common to sight.
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- Include the mugger crocodiles.
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- But the highlight of wildlife sightings in the deciduous forests of the Gir National Park is the endangered Asiatic lion.
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- Once found in Africa, South West Asia and Greece, the Asiatic lion today is an endangered specie that can be only found in Gujarat’s national parks. Their population had once dwindled down to just 173 in 1968 has now grown to 523 under the care and support of the Forest Department.
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- The size of the female’s paw is big enough to cover a fully developed human’s face, and then some more.
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- Next morning, the final day of our trip started by heading further south to Veraval, before heading back inland.
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- Founded in the 13th and 14th century before the Portuguese colonised India, the town served as the major port to the Kingdom of Junagarh before it was merged into India in 1947.
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- Old rustic ships made quite an interesting backdrop to take a few action shots while the area was empty early in the day.
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- The Jeep Compass at this point had been with us for almost 1200kms in which we had literally dissected Gujarat via road from its absolute North at the Rann to the absolute south at the port of Veraval… Which, was the southernmost point in Gujarat that we would visit before we start to backtrack our way to Pune.
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- As we drove towards Rajkot for our last night stay in Gujarat, I was driving across the most colourful sunset that we had yet encountered in the dry state.
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- From here, on the next two hour would be spent driving around our final stay while flirting with a golden sun setting on kicked up dirt.
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- With the transmission in Auto comfortably driving the Compass by the front wheels, it takes quite a lot more than just lifting off mid-corner to get the 1.6 ton machine to rotate around its axis. Most of it is down to the absolutely spot-on suspension settings that while keeping the Compass flat while in corners doesn’t stiffen them up too much for the entire SUV to crash around.
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- While the Compass was most comfortable on shallower off roads, going deeper into more undulated terrain leaves one wanting for just a bit more articulation and ground clearance. That thought quickly vanishes though as you realise that for the 10% of the time you’d actually go off the road, you would be giving up on the extremely good highway mannerism and solid, stable feel of the Jeep Compass that makes it a effortless long-distance-mile-muncher.
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- With the evening coming to a close it was the perfect mood setting to get together and recollect the last week gone by in Gujarat driving the Compass. To sum it up, the week traveling through the state was a marathon experience that opened up Gujarat to us like never before. The Compass has taken us through every terrain that the state had for us, easily cocooned inside a perfectly comfortable shell that could do almost everything you’d ask from it. If there’s anything I would have asked for more, it would be the Compass and a few more days of travel…