Fri Nov 17
Miriam The Efficient packed everything for the trek. She made brownies, egg sandwiches and we had an assortment of chocolates & biscuits for the trip.

Sat, Nov 18
Up at 6 a.m and out of Bandra by 7. Picked up Shona, Rwituja & Tapu from BKC. Straight, clean drive out of town till Panvel, traffic was heavy even at 8 a.m. And then we lost our way out of Panvel (which, on the way back, we figured was the shorter by pass road to Bombay) and took time to get back on track. Stopped by at Mac Donald for strong Georgia Gold coffees.

Couldn’t believe Karnala was this close to Bandra, exactly 61 kms from home and just 10 kms of smooth, winding road beyond Panvel on the Mumbai-Goa highway. We were there at 9 am in spite of all delays mentioned above. That really is the beauty of Bombay, there’s so much of nature that’s accessible in spite of the incredible development around this sprawling megapolis.

We hit the breakfast table as soon as we reached our resort. It was definitely not a ‘resort’ that everyone had in mind, the look on everyone’s faces told me that. It looked more like a roadside dhaba! Only later did we realize that the dhaba front was just an exterior and inside was a Basic, but really value-for-money, comfortable and homely stay with a great rose garden, a fantastic view of the Thumbs Up pinnacle, access to the bird sanctuary and trekking trail.

The plan was to check out the Bird sanctuary on Saturday and do the trek on Sun early morning. We missed the turning to the sanctuary on the drive there by 5 kms in spite of the typical forest gate at the entrance. The overriding agenda on this trip was just one – PHOTOGRAPHY and that’s exactly what we did on Day One. Tapu & Shona were hard-core enthusiasts and they were on a mission to add more to their tribe! We lugged around not less than 3 haversacks weighing not unlike stones. Oh, and then there were the monopods and tripods and we were supposed to trek with all this. But we made full use of every bit of equipment and we clicked some fabulous pictures. I loved the afternoon Kingfisher Strong and the Malvani thali with the soulkadi, prawns and surmai, all served really hot. I don’t think we took the Kingfisher ‘strong’ that seriously till we were down a bottle each! Anyway thanks to that, we just slept and spent the rest of the day at the ‘resort’. The evening was quite chilly and that was a bloody welcome change. A special mention must be made of Raju & Pandu, the woolly sheep, which according to the shepherd would be sold for meat the coming year. So I made it a point to spend quality time with the two, feeding Marie biscuits and cuddling.

Sunday Nov 19
The other achievement of the trip was the trek. Sunday morning saw us climb the pinnacle. For an experienced climber, it takes 1 ½ hrs to reach the top. Well, I think we reached half way there in that time, but remember we were carrying all that equipment and 2 buxom ladies up! We took a look back down from the 1 ½ hr point and saw the tiny cars and buses on the meandering roads below and New Bombay far away. That’s when we realized we were too far up and we had to go back all the way down carrying all the above-mentioned load. But we made it back alright, except for a few scrapes and slips here and there.

This trip taught me all there is to know about cameras, exposure, aperture & shutter speeds. And for that I’m thankful to Ze Champs de Karnala – Shona & Tapu and for their letting me click away anything on their fancy spare Canon SLR and experimenting with the tons of lenses and for having the encouragement & motivation to let me explore my yet unexplored photographic talents.