I’ve reached THE LIMIT with Dean

Okay, this is it. I’m finished. Yesterday, on his 59^th birthday, Dean finally drove me to the limit. Well, walked me, actually. Here is the photographic proof.

We went to Eravikulam National Park slightly north of the town of Munnar.



Nilgiri tahr herd



Driving through more gorgeous tea plantation and eucalyptus forest on the way, and arriving at the gate of the national park where we paid our fee and boarded a parks bus for the 4 km climb up toward Anaimudi Peak. After ten minutes of twisiting single-lane paved road, we came to a hairpin turn at which point everyone disembarked for the 1.5 km walk up the rest of the road. From this vantage point already high up on the mountain, the view of the surrounding countryside was spectacular. The aim of the visit, though, was the sighting of “the rare, but almost tame, Nilgiri tahr (a type of mountain goat)” [Lonely Planet].

On up the little road we climbed, in a clot of people from our little parks shuttle bus, through open

grassland and bare rock faces, in search of the tahr. Suddenly the clot came to a halt and there was a group of a dozen tahr grazing alongside a small stream.

They are not tiny but not huge, light brown all over, all with short horns, some curved backwards. We watched and photgraphed them and proceded further up the paved path. Signs along the way admonished visitors to walk only on the path, not to litter, not to remove things from the park. 

Ahead of us, one family stopped to take family photos, and when we approached, asked us to be in the photo with them. This is not an unusual occurrence for visitors here in India. We sat with the family members in the fragrant lemon grass along the pathway while innumerable photos were taken, and as they got up to continue on, another family asked whether we would pose with them. We felt that we were akin to the goats as a rare sighting in the park!

Suddenly there was a fence and gate across the narrow pavement and a sign indicating that further access by park visitors was prohibited. The sign read, “Here is the Limit”.

So, that’s it.