Nature at its very best..!

Nature at its very best..!

Words fall short to describe the experience- trekking through wet decidous forest of Dangs, stretching our physical limits, breathing fresh mountain air, exploring forests, sighting snakes, counting the stars and so on.
I am talking about the trek to Gira Falls, Dangs on the 10th and 11th of October, 2008. Fountainhead School and Fountainhead Preschool staff had a weekend nature camp as a part of their training program.This program was organized by Team Prayas (www.prayas-india.org)
It was both a learning experience as well as fun and adventurous. We started off at 5:30 pm from Surat. On the way we stopped for dinner and finally around 10:00 we reached Kalibhel. Even in the bus, we were assigned one activity by Prayas where in we had four groups and had to find some information on different Flora& Fauna. Later that night, presentations were given by these four groups. Although tired from the journey, the teams unleashed their creativity and came up with lively presentations with poetry and music etc.
Next day we started off early by 6:00 am with morning walk & exercise. It felt great to see the spectacular view and breathe in the fresh morning air.

Our trek started at around 9:00 am. On our way to Gira falls we stopped at various points to explore nature with all our senses. We learnt a lot about Alage, Fungi, mushroom, orchid & diferent other trees like bamboo , Beheda…………. etc. Do you know which is the smallest seed and the biggest seed? Orchid seed which is not even visible with our naked eye is the smallest seed and that of Coconut is the biggest one. We also learnt about and saw lichens ( symbiosis between Algae and Fungi.)
Finally after a long drive,we reached Gira village from where on we had to start our trekking. After walking down 3 km we could finally see the glimpse of breathtaking falls from where in we had to start our adventurous trek down the steep mountains to the spectacular falls. All the staff had great fun under the cool water of Gira falls. The descent was easier than the ascent but more treacherous. It took lots of effort to drag ourselves out of water under the scorching sun.

The toughest part for all of us was to reach the top back from were we started.
After reaching the top we had a great feast of Khichdi, Kadhi & Nimbu Pani. After lunch at around 3:00 pm and resting for a while we played a game of “Web of life” where in we learnt all the living beings, be it a small shrub or a insect or animal or human being, are all woven together in a big web. We as a human being always try to disturb this web with our wrong habits like that of using plastics, wasting water and disturbing the mother nature and Father sun.
Finally at round 5:30 pm we finally pulled our legs to get back to Gira village from where we started. As a small effort from our team ,we collected the plastic garbage lying on the lap of mother nature.


We started back our journey to home with a memorable experience.. The exposure to fresh air and an unhurried pace of life can do wonders for the mental and physical health for all of us.
In short, the trekking was refreshing and everybody is all charged to accept more challenges with a vow to take care and preserve our beautiful nature. We sincerely thanks Prayas Team Environment for taking us to a memorable journey of our life.

Falguni