Our first day out was to the local hills and a steep climb to some fantastic view points, missing the correct path we meandered further upwards till we came to a small track which lead to a hill top, more fab views, as there was no real path other than the one we came up on we cut across some rough ground to another path we could see in the distance. This lead us down via an Ashram and a purpose built watch tower and eventually back on our intended route and yet more great scenery.
Next day we went with Colin and Sue on a day long jeep safari which although good wasn’t what we expected, no decent sightings of animals though the 6km trek through the park outskirts was great. Our Guide really didn’t have much of an idea about “guiding” thinking that as he knew the way that was good enough. So Sue and I hatched a plan.. Sue had a small plastic Tiger figure which I took a half believable picture of through some small plants, we then showed this to our guide who instantly revealed it as a genuine Tiger spot and his tracking skills were to be credited for this sighting…. After he had shown other groups of trekkers our sighting we confessed that we had lead him up the proverbial Tiger track and Sue showed him the plastic animal.. On the way back through the reserve we did spot a Giant Malabar Squirrel which was really quite cute.
Next day we decided to take it easy and chill a bit and sort out some future travel plans and had a farewell meal with Colin and Sue as they were heading off to Munnar.
Deciding that we had not had much luck with spotting any Elephants or Tigers we went on an all day 15km trek through the National Park, the small group consisted of Linda and me, three people from Estonia ( considerably younger may I add ! ) two guides and an armed guide just in case of any problems with attacking wildlife. The walk was listed as medium to hard which is about what it was. The best wildlife we saw were some distant Bison, Samba Deer, wild pigs and an assortment of Birds, no Tigers or Elephants, the walk was really great though and we had a decent break at midday to chat with the group from Estonia..
Our last day in Kumily and we decided to try our luck with a lake cruise where Elephants are often spotted on the shore, again no luck but plenty of deer and wild boor and two really large snakes, and a few new birds we had not seen before. The cruise was again really good and although we didn’t see any Elephants we really enjoyed it. Kumily, we can recommend to anyone. Great.
Coffee Beans drying out, local walk, Kumily.
More Beans.
Hills around Kumily.
Some large flowers on the walk around Kumily.
A bit of artistic licence.. image made through camera and not with any photo app. Quite simple, set light source to tungsten and under expos the picture by 1.5 stops ..
Sepia.
More arty stuff, Hills around Kumily.
Jungle under growth fungi type stuff.
Large Pond skaters on a mountain pond. Periyar national park, Kerala.
The Hoax tiger picture... 
Sue, Linda & Colin and our guide...... now where is he ????
Mountain side water trickle... not really a waterfall is it?.
Views.
Giant Malabar Squirrel.
Nilgiri Black Langur.
Indian Monitor Lizzard.
Sambar Deer keeping a watch on those trekkers.
Linda and our armed guide. I think his intention would be to hit any Tiger with the gun by the way he is holding it !!
Flower.
Park Trekking.
Ridge views, Periyar National Park.
Hills.
Forest.
Forest from the lake.
New tree plantation.
Flying ant nest.
Periyar Lake.
Periyar lake and Sambar Deer.
Two rather large snakes.
Periyar Lake.
Cormorants. Periyar lake.
Big Flowers.
Big Spider... ok I know Craig has bigger ones in his garden !!
Kumily Hillsides.
Kumily Hillsides.
More big flowers.
Kumily Hillsides.End of Blog, next Blog Varkala, Kerala.
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