Pass with caution!

Last week end was a long but quick trip to area around Bikaner to find
tracks for the next Desert Storm. Three days and 1600kms sort of trip.
1200kms to and from Bikaner and rest spent around the town exploring
the unknown off the road country.

Originally planned the trip with two cars but the others could not join
in so left home base on Saturday by 1500hrs. Drove through Gurgaon,
Behror, Shahpura, turned off the NH8 and used state highway to Ringus
and then on the NH11 to reach Bikaner at 2230.

Next day was full taken up exploring the country around. The research
on GoogleEarth had already reveled some interesting alignments but till
you do it on the ground you really do not know.

Here is a shot which I liked from my last weeks outing on the Aravallis
and now this week I was heading for major off roading adventure in to
the desert

This track lead us through “monsoon” farming country. The fields here are somewhat green since they received some rain fall.

This young fellow got carried away in to thinking that GV was also one of the milch animals that he was tending.

Further afield the crops had failed and the farmer we met was disgusted
with his luck. Gave him a lift despite ferocious looking sickle that he
carried.

Climbing dunes was fun

But not as much as was coming down on the steeper side. Only wish there was another person to capture that on the camera.

The tracks that ran through the fields had many “gates” to keep out wild animals (read deer, chinkara and blue bull)

And this meant that my better half got enough exercise opening and closing those gates after us

Having a vehicle that can be taken off road and enjoying taking it on
to such territories was one of my major priorities when I purchased the
GV and I am enjoying it to the fullest.

The objective of finding 50km+ sections was partially achieved and so
the next Desert Storm will see most of the sections in the range of
50~100kms in length. This in contrast with 12~20kms that were run in
the initial years.

On day three and four of the Desert Storm 2008 we will pass Kheechan, a small hamlet near the town of Phalodi. This place is like a magic word to any bird watcher. The reason is that every year thousands of Demoiselle Cranes come here during their annual migration from Siberia. Just google for “kheechan” and you will get page full of links about this astonishing fact. The birds are fed daily by people of