Kalo Dungar or Black Hill is the highest point in Kutch, Gujarat, India, at. It is located from District headquarters of Bhuj and from nearest town Khavda. This is probably the only place in Kachchh from where a panoramic view of the Great Rann of Kutch is possible. Since it is located very near to the Pakistan border, there is an Army post at the top; beyond here, only military personnel are allowed. The Kalo Dungar is also famous for a 400-year-old Dattatreya temple. Kalo Dungar magnetic hill is a popular optical illusion where vehicle seems to defy the gravity and roll up the slope.
Etymology
The word Kalo Dungar means the Black Hill in Kutchi language, from the words Kalo for the Black and Dungar for the Hill.
Dattatreya temple
The Kalo Dungar is also famous for a 400-year-old Dattatreya temple. Legend says that when Dattatreya walked on the earth, he stopped at the Black Hills and found a band of starving jackals. Being a god, he offered them his body to eat and as they ate, his body continually regenerated itself. Because of this, for the last four centuries, the priest at the temple has prepared a batch of prasad, cooked rice, that is fed to the jackals after the evening aarti. Another, legend has it that there was once a holy man named Lakkh Guru residing at Kala Dungar and worshiping the Lord Dattatreya. He used to feed wild jackals. There came a day when he found he had no food, so he cut off a part of his body and offered it to the jackals, saying, "Le ang!". Over the centuries, this got corrupted to "Long".
Kalo Dungar magnetic hill or Kalo Dungar Anti Gravity slope is an hill road with optical illusion of a gravity hill where vehicle seems to defy the gravity and roll from down slope to up the slope. A strange phenomenon was observed at Kalo Dungar, when some visitors noticed that their vehicles would attain speeds over driving down the hill even with the ignition switched off, a much higher velocity than descending other nearby peaks. A team of experts from the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority ; Institute of Seismological Research, Gandhinagar; and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur studied the phenomenon. It was concluded that the vehicles pick up speed because the slope is steeper than it appears to the traveller. It is 5.2 km west of the Kutch Dattaterya Temple, 5.6 km south of India Bridge historic landmark, 5.6 km east of BSF Camp onState Highway SH45, 5.4 km east of the Y-fork intersection the intersection where Kalo Dungar road starts off the State Highway SH45, 3 km east of Drobhana post office, 12 km northeast of Khavda, 33 km northwest of Kutch city, 52.6 km south of India–Pakistan border, 83 km north of Bhuj, 138 km north of Gandhidham, and 410 northwest of Ahmedabad via NH947-NH27-NH314.
