Midst of wilderness

I started my blog to make my treasure my travel memories, but off late, I have become to lazy to write my travelogues. So let me write this one, as the memories are fresh enough.

 

  Of all the trips, road trips excite me a lot. For me it is not only about the destination,  it is also also about the roads that I travel on. I would never like to take the same route again and again. I am bored of the Blr Mysore Bandipur road, having travelled many times on that route. This time around, it was a new route, we were going out of bangalore through kanakapura. We were off to BR Hills, a serene, less explored wildlife destination. It is at the confluence of the eastern and the western ghats.

An eco friendly bin

Our Loghut 

Finally we decided to make a visit to the Jungle Lodges and Resorts. This resort is situated right in the middle of BR Tiger Reserve. Built it the most nature friendly way from wood and very less of concrete. It felt really adventurous and thrilling to stay there and to be able to hear all sorts of wild cries, especially at nights. K gudi (kyathadevarayana gudi) wilderness camp runs on generators in the evenings and there is power only between 6pm and 6 am. Lanterns are placed at all the cottages, to scare away any wild animals and to show you way incase of a power failure. It is a great sight to see hordes of deers roaming around freely within the campus. Also there is a forest department elephant camp right next door. Kids love to see the mahouts bathe and clean these huge animals.

Indian Gaur

A safari stopover

Nature's artistry

The resort runs a safari into the Jungle twice a day, morning 6 and evening 3. Sighting of animals is a matter of pure luck. The naturalist kept mentioning of seing a tigress with her cubs just 2 days back, but we had to be satisfied with just a bear and many many birds. Well, bears are also said to highly reclusive and sighting is more difficult. Jungle lodges also took us to the famous Biligiri Ranganatha temple situated around 10 kms from the camp. All along the way, the drive, the naturalist provided us little snippets about nature around, birds, animal behaviour etc.

The elusive bear, we had to maintain our distance

Crested Eagle

The biligiri Ranganatha temple is  a quite temple, dedicated to the lord balaji. Its location gives a great view of the forest below. I was reminded of the Himgiri gopalswamy betta located near the Bandipur forest. Just at the foothills is located the Girijana vikasa kendra specially built for the upliftment of the Soliga tribals. Its a good place to buy some forest products like amla and sogadu sherbets , shikakai (soapnut) powder etc.

I would be really wrong not to mention about the impeccable service offered by each staff of the resort. They take good care of their guests. I hear this is a norm at all Jungle resorts. Worth every pie you pay. Food is also good, with good variety.

Water trickling down at Barachukki

You have two routes to reach this place, one via Kanakapura taking you through Malavalli, kollegal , br hills and K gudi or one through Mysore taking you through Chamrajnagar.

Lot of attractions dot the road through Malavalli,  Shivanasamudra, shimsha, Gaganachukki

and Barachukki falls to mention a few. We visited the Barachukki falls, however summers are not a ideal time to visit these falls. There was hardly any water in the falls.

This was one of the shortest holidays that we have done, but a very fulfilling one.