Bogged down and fed up of the city, its pace and noise and pollution — head to the Aravali's. A piece of serenity hidden away in the Keekar jungles- near Surajkund. A proud sentinel stands guard at one end of the entrance to tranquility…..
The Aravalli range being rich in minerals has been a site for much illegal mining in the past. However, due to major public hue and cry, since 2009 when the Supreme Court banned mining in the area — it has been developed as a national park (not known to many).
As national parks go- it may not offer much variety in vegetation (or so it seemed to my untrained eyes — largely keekar, some lantana etc) and the wildlife may be restricted to Nilgais (interesting fact: they like to relieve themselves back to back at a common site. we saw plenty such dumps all along the walk!) hares, foxes, porcupines, mongoose, a stray camel or leopards (so they said- if you are lucky)
What it did offer was QUIET and a lot of soothing greenery (no overhead cover unfortunately) — the path had deep ridges and ravines — the walls of which showed the ravages of the excessive mining that must have gone on here. the rocks and boulders strewn all over, showed interesting strains of yellow copper, deep red ferrous oxide, some blacks and greys. The earth below went from natural dusty and dirty to yellow tinged fine sandy, to coarse red bajri kind to very fine grey sand — I guess depending on the kind of rocks in the area.
The best however were the 5 LAKEs in the area- deep and huge scattered at a 500–800 meters distance from each other — these were probably formed when the miners hid the ground water reserves.
Crystal clear water, unsullied and clean. Bounded by high wall of stone on all sides — they must be a pleasant resort for the migratory birds. We unfortunately had gone at a time of the day when birds take a respite from the sun so all we saw were some eagles (or some other preying birds) and some bushchats. Early morning should be a good time to come.
The temperatures- more so when closer to the water bodies was definitely a degree or two lower than that of the city and the cool breeze was welcome to our sweaty bodies. the more adventurous of the group of course cooled off with a dip in the water.
Be prepared to walk, the rocky terrain- those who do not enjoy walking should probably avoid.