Driving across the beautiful hilly terrain of Jammu & Samba region of J&K.

As we talk about JAMMU , we often corelate it with Vaishnodevi Temple ,without knowing that its almost 50kms from Jammu city at KATRA.....Jammu City ,located on the valley by the R. Tawi is a pictureques place in itself, beautifully planned (excepted the old City limit).....Since ,we had been living in this city for last 1 year, we have covered almost 90% of the places in & around the city. It was one fine sunday morning ,as we woke from sleep...with a cup of morning tea ,we kept wondering ,what to do thru'out the day; A phone call caught our attention ,its one of our dear friend,who hasitantly was enquiring ,whether we'll be interested to go out on a drive across the hilly terrain of Jammu region. Its obviously ---YES!!!! only 30 mins to get ready ,as off we go on our daylong trip....
   We took the bypass road from Narwal cross,towards Batra Hospital, where's a road that goes uphill towards Surinsar Lake.A lady on the drivers chair,our friend Sumitji was thrilled to drive thru' the zigzag turns....The beautiful deepblue sky, lushgreen wheat fields,fresh air ,everything added a zest to our enthusiasm. The landscape looked awesome as we kept moving onto higher altitude. It was our first stopover, A viewpoint from where the R.Tawi & the Udhampur Rly.line amidst the high mountains looked amazing under the deepblue sky.

Beautiful R. Tawi cutting across the landscape.

Pictureque landscape view of Jammu.

Surinsar Lake.

 As we started onto our journey thru' the rugged terrain , we came across lot of picnicers enjoying themselves under the sun by the high mountains. The first glance of the Surinsar lake mesmerized me ; I kept on framing some beautiful shots of the famous lake.

Surinsar Lake.

Peacock ,at the sanctuary.

Hailstorm (2014-MansarLake)

Sheshnag temple, Mansar Lake.

 Pictureques Surinsar Lake....................

Beautiful Surinsar Lake.
Now we started onto our journey towards Mansar Lake, By 1pm we were at Mansar lake site & opted for JKTDC guesth house resturant for lunch. After a simple lunch of Dal-sabji-roti, we started for our Parikrama of Mansar lake to Sheshnag temple. The beautiful peacock took our attention on our way ,at the Sanctuary......Its a 3kms trek route,and often take only by a handful of people. After darshan at the temple ,it was litterly drizzling & we had to hurry .................But Oh God!!!! we were caught amidst HAILSTORM ; the hails were hitting us hard & we had to stop somewhere................. The plastic ,infront of a small shop gave us shelther.In mins, all the pathway turned white....Its was a lovely experience & we kept enjoying .......
It was now time to leave for Jammu , instead we took the samba route to enjoy the terrain . It looked very scarry as we drove thru' high mountains.................But truely added to new dimmension to the way we had been knowing Jammu. We ended the journey with gobi pakodas & a hot cup of tea by the roadside dhaba.