The colours of Kaas

Traveller and avid blogger Deepak Amembal writes about his journey into the land of flowers, Kaas…

Flowers everywhere

Kaas, the colour palette of nature, is a naturalist’s delight. This plateau, 25kms from Satara, bursts into a multi colour landscape of flowers every year just after the monsoons for a period of two to three weeks in September/October.

Traffic on the way

It has become a tourist destination now, with hordes of tourists from Mumbai and Pune and even from as far as Bengaluru visiting to be a part of this wonderful natural phenomenon. And if responsible tourism is not enforced, this wonder will cease.According to Dr. Sandeep Shrotri, there are over 1,500 types of plants in Kaas – 156 botanical families, 680 genera, 1452 species, 400 medicinal plants, and about 33 endangered varieties in Kaas and the neighbouring Koyna area. A team from UNESCO has visited the site in order to assess it for declaring it a World Heritage Site. Achieving this milestone would go a long way in creating awareness about conserving the place.

We had heard about the weekend crowds, so we planned to visit on Sunday and Monday with an overnight stay at Satara.

When we reached on Sunday, it was like a melaout there. The police had fortunately banned parking on the plateau and all cars had to be parked a couple of kilometres away. It took us about an hour to cover a distance of about 5kms and reach the parking spot. Such was the traffic! Since we had planned to visit it on Monday too, we decided to drive through and visit the Kaas lake on the other side.

Kaas Lake

This is indeed a beautiful, serene place. It also has a tapri (roadside kiosk) selling ‘dabeli’, ‘bhelpuri’ and chai. Nothing, fortunately is available on the plateau itself.After spending a restful night in a hotel in Satara, we had a sumptuous breakfast of ‘kandey pohey’ and checked out and were on our way yet again to revel in the colours of Kaas plateau.

On the way my birder friend Nandan who blogs at Timenplace, showed me plenty of birds all along the way and on the plateau too. Check out his account of our visit at http://bit.ly/upxS0D.

It was such a pleasant sight when we reached the plateau and saw that there were barely five to six people. We parked and went along the paths on the plateau, clicking the beautiful colourful flowers and the awe inspiring landscape.

Flowers in multiple colours

Having spent about three to four very satisfying hours there, we had our fill of beauty for the season and returned to visit Kaas yet again next year!