Wild India’s first visit to Kaas Plateau in year 2013

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind

When you hold a camera, the first thought that comes to mind is to capture the different hues of nature and instinctively the first objects that come to mind are flowers (maybe butterflies too but they are too fast for a novice to capture on his camera). This is the feeling I had when I held the camera during the initial days.

It was the year 2013, when we arranged our first visit to Kaas Plateau. Being a social media freak, I already had a party of friends who had been there umpteen number of times. Their pictures on social media were stunning. I was already making plans on what I desired to see and how I would capture the myriad colours of the blooming flowers.

This was to be our first visit to Kaas plateau and we wanted to make it a memorable trip. More than a dozen enthusiastic nature lovers with a botanist were all set to experience the grandeur of Kaas. The botanist, as we learnt along the rest of the journey, helped us identify most of the flowers and explained to us the importance of the flower. And yes along with that, she also gave us the scientific names, most of which were tongue twisters and difficult to remember.

We started from Mumbai late in the evening (around 2300 hours) in a 21-seater bus. Around 0330 when we were dosing as our chauffeur continued driving through the streets of Pune, we heard BOOM. As luck would have had it, we had a flat tyre in the middle of the night! It took a good half an hour to replace it. We were back on track after that and by 0700 hrs we were at Satara. All of us were more than eager to dump our bags and head straight to the fields.

Kaas plateau was about 25 kms. from the city. For a first timer, looking at the plateau is a heavenly sight. With so many beautiful species of flowers, one could spend the entire day taking photographs. After this experience, we continued to Kaas lake where we continued to gaze at the flowers and also got to sight birds.

We passed through beautiful scenic landscapes of Maharashtra with a couple of stops looking for birds & flora while visiting Chalkewadi Wind Mills. On our way back we stopped at Thosegar waterfall, a scenic spot located near the village of Thoseghar to witness the grand waterfalls. During one of our visits, we even spotted a green vine snake there.

On the second day, we had a hearty lunch and headed back to Mumbai with some wonderful memories.

Places visited during our visit were Kaas Plateau, Chalkewadi Wind Mills and Thoseghar waterfall.
Some of the species we saw there include:

  • Pleocaulus ritchei (Topli Karvi)
  • Ceropegia oculata, vincaefolia, media & jainii
  • Habenaria rariflora (Ground Orchid)
  • drosera indica & burmannii
  • Smithia hirsuta (Hairy Smithia) & agharkarii
  • Murdannia lanuginosa (Abolima)
  • Impatiens lawii
  • Habenaria heyneana (Toothbrush Orchid)
  • Cyanotis fasciculata (Nilwanti)
  • Dipcadi montanum (Deepkadee)
  • Pinda concanensis
  • Vigna vexillata
  • Euphorbia laeta (Square root plant) ….. and many many more.

At Wild India, we organise tours every September. Do join us to explore the amazing Kaas. It will be a memorable experience.

About Kaas Plateau
The Kaas Plateau also known as the “Kaas Pathar” is a plateau situated 25 kilometres from Satara in Maharashtra, India. It is situated high hill plateaus and grasslands turns into a ‘valley of flowers’ during monsoon season, in the month of August. Kaas Plateau has more than 150 or more types of flowers, shrubs and grasses. Kaas plateau is a World Natural Heritage site.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaas_plateau

Best time to visit kaas is during August and September

For more information on a trip to Kaas Plateau, e mail us on info@wild-india.in

Additional Links
http://www.kas.ind.in/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaas_plateau