River and wooded shore with reflections
Animals,  CFFC,  Nepal,  Rivers,  Travel galleries

Gallery: on the Narayani River

November 16, 2022 / 39 Comments

In the early morning mist we drifted slowly with the current, our boat man using his single oar simply to steer us. Here on the Narayani River, which skirts the northern boundary of Chitwan National Park in Nepal, the setting was beautiful, the atmosphere tranquil.

On our river ‘safari’ here we saw relatively little wildlife. Instead I was entranced by the early morning misty landscape. And when it came to photos, I was most taken by the shapes of the dead trees that had once been swept up by the currents but now lay abandoned on the river bed or on tiny pebble islands.

Here are some examples, shared for Cee’s ‘Weathered Wood’ challenge.

Misty river and wooded hills with driftwood
Misty river and wooded hills with driftwood
Misty river and wooded hills with driftwood
Driftwood on a pebble bank in a river
Misty river and driftwood on a pebble island

Crocodiles

I can’t finish without mentioning the wildlife we did see, which included a handful of gharial crocodiles on the banks. In places they seemed to echo the shapes of the driftwood – until they moved!

Crocodile on a muddy bank
Gharial crocodile on the banks of the Narayani River
Crocodile on a muddy bank with a man poling a boat nearby
The locals are used to them!

This critically endangered species once thrived in all the major river systems of the northern Indian subcontinent. But by 1976, according to Wikipedia, fewer than 200 gharials were estimated to survive. And by 2003 the Chitwan population had declined to only 38 wild gharials. Today the population has been partially restored thanks to breeding programmes. Nevertheless fewer than 200 breeding adults survive in the wild in Nepal. We were fortunate to see them here.

I visited Chitwan in October 2022

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