My hike to tea garden

It was Sunday afternoon, I had my lunch and left from my home for sightseeing. Winter has fallen now and it is time of spring season. I wore only half sleeves sweater and not any thick warm clothes. My hike began from my home in Dharamshala. From home I reached Kotwali market, it was in full swing. Public buying common grocery items and vegetables from the shops. Restaurants and hotels could be seen with people having their food. I bypassed bus station, filling station and reached to a place with cedar trees on either sides of the road. It was a very nice view. As I reached telecommunication company BSNL’s office, there’s a road going to Narghota. On the mile stone it was written “Narghota tea factory 1.8 kms”.

Narghota is famous for its tea factory and tea garden. So, let’s make it. On moving ahead there were beautiful houses and trees. After covering about half a mile, I could see tea garden. It was still a bit far.When I reached, the beauty of tea garden was breathtaking. There was complete stretch of tea garden on a single hill from all directions. On steep as well as on slope there was tea garden. There was some hatch back car parked. It was lush green from all sides.

There was some bird chirping on a tree. It took some time to find the bird. When I found it, I was surprised. It was a bird with dark blue face and yellow, red and green colour patches on its body. Here the sight of tea garden with trees at different places was spectacular. Some trees were straight and some in dancing position. Some cars and bikes passed by as I was enjoying this view.

100 m ahead, there was my destination “Narghota tea factory”. I went to the tea garden adjacent to the factory where I could see the fantastic view of the city. There a couple requested me to take their photographs from their mobile phone with the background of the tea garden and view of the city. Then, I moved for the tea factory.

Here the visitors are allowed to see tea manufacturing. It was under renovation. Big steel components were being fixed by some workers. I called a worker and asked him, “How is the tea manufactured here?”

“Due to covid-19 lockdown everything was closed. Now, we are renovating. One can see the tea manufacturing in the month of April.” the worker said.

He pointed towards big chimney and said, ” we use wood as a fuel for manufacturing tea and smoke release through it.

From here, I decided to return. While returning, I saw two girls and a guy were taking snapshots of each other in the tea garden. A man was collecting some fallen dried branches of the trees, perhaps for cooking.

It was a memorable hiking.

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