Mudigere - April 30

My last walk. I suppose I was busy winding up and packing up that night that I didn't really get time to write in my diary. Looking through the pictures, don't think there was anything spectacular about the walk that day. We were walking in the same part of the forest where we had walked the previous day - just taking a different route. Since it had rained so heavily the other night, everything, whatever little tracks were there on the forest floor were all washed away. Fresh leaves and branches covered the forest floor, a reminder of the storm of the previous evening. There were signs of human disturbance everywhere - firewood collection, timber felling, encroachment of forest land and so on. I remember Kamal and I waited at the bus stop for a long time to be picked up. I started filling up my data sheets. After a while I realised I have an audience - 4 or 5 children from the village peeking inside, trying to make sense of what I was doing. We chatted as we waited...I was aware my last walk was done, tomorrow morning as everybody else would be studying the maps and marking the routes and going about their walks, I would be sitting in a bus to Bangalore.

Last walk

Signs of timber extraction

Probably a water snake

Walk to the bus stop

The bus stop - waiting to be picked up