I was not aware of such exquisite place so near to my home. In summer we decided to visit this place, which is just 90km from home (Sarni). Churna Tiger Reserve is a zone of Satpura National Park. Located 180km from Bhopal, can be reached via Itarsi or Bhopal and also by booking the safari from Madhai Gate and Pachmari gate. Booking of the Rest House and safari is to be done through the Hoshangabad Office of MP Forest Dept. You don’t get safari jeep from Churna gate, you have to bring off road vehicle for safari.
We started in noon with scorching sun overhead, it was damn hot on the way but once you enter the core area it was better. British built the rest house, it has big rooms with high rise terrace. The place runs on solar electricity and there is no internet within 50km. After settling down we headed to our first safari, up and down the hills we can see deer, wild boars and buffalo.
The sun was setting down and so the temperature. We marked some constellations in the clear night sky. The moon and the array of stars was littering the sky and earth. We could hear animals howling far off, it was quiet all around. The night gets colder and colder and finally we have to cover ourselves with the heavy quilts, in noon we were wandering over the use of them in summer but now we realized their importance. We were just 50km off the highway and who can imagine such drastic change in weather and environment.
Morning 5.30am we took another safari; the weather was still chill and moist. The sun was sparkling on top of the dewdrops. It was not all green around with many dry and brown patches but Palash trees filled it with bright orange color. It was a perfect place for a vacation away from the pollution, phones and mails, you tend to spend more time with the people rather than on social media.
Check out full blog on https://espirituelibre.blogspot.com/2018/08/star-gazing-inside-core-jungle-churna.html
