I have been part of GHAC Travel and Leisure and Twin Cities Photography Club communities in meetup from the last 2 years. I have been following the events and ignoring them until I came across an event that I could not let go. It is Save the turtle festival - village and beach experience. The event was posted 2 months before the travel date. Being an avid follower of wildlife in Discovery and NGC, I was intrigued by the idea of witnessing baby turtles crawling their way to the waters after hatching. Although I have not enrolled initially, I was closely following it. Finally two weeks before the event, I made up my mind and enrolled myself.
The event is about participating in a Turtle festival which involves witnessing the hatching and release of Olive Ridley Turtles. Since no one can guarantee the hatchings, the organizers have planned a 3 day trip which would give us opportunity to attend 4 sessions to maximize the chances of seeing the turtle release.
On the 4th of April, 2014, friday evening we boarded the bus to Pune. It was a very well planned trip where the organizers have coordinated with all the travellers and made all the arrangements. The expectations were set for the stay as there are no hotels or resorts, home stay was arranged with vegetarian food. We reached Pune at 7:30 AM on Saturday, sneaked into a hotel to fresh up and had our breakfast and started to Velas at 10 AM in a private hired minibus which organizers booked in advance. Velas is at a distance of about 240 kms from Pune. We had taken the route: Pune --> Mangaon --> Mhasaala --> Harihareshwar --> Baagmandla --> Vesvi --> Bankoot --> Velas. The journey took about 7 hours since we had to go through ghat section and stopped by couple of places for tea and lunch.
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| View of a hill on the way to Velas |
At Baagmandla, we got into a jetty/ferry which transported vehicle along with us to other side of the creek.
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| Ferry carrying vehicles and passengers on river Savitri |
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