Just below Mehrangarh’s walls, Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park offers a different kind of Jodhpur experience: winding trails through rocky hills planted with native desert trees, shrubs and grasses. Interpretation boards explain the geology—volcanic rhyolite, sandstone—and the ecological value of arid-land plants. From the trails you get unusual angles of the fort, bastions framed by cactus-like shrubs and thorny bushes, and seasonal flowers that prove the desert isn’t lifeless. It’s quiet compared to the city, making it ideal for morning walks, birdwatching and understanding the natural landscape on which Jodhpur was built.
About this place
History & highlights
The park was created in 2006 by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust to restore a degraded, rocky wasteland around the fort that had been overrun by invasive Prosopis juliflora (baavlia) and used as a dumping ground. Botanists and ecologists worked to remove the invasive species and reintroduce over 80 species of native rock-loving plants that once grew naturally in the Marwar region. The park, covering about 70–72 hectares, opened to the public in 2011, with marked trails, a visitor centre and plant nursery. It now serves as an outdoor classroom on desert ecology, a buffer green zone for the fort and a model for how heritage institutions can also lead environmental restoration.
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