Nagarahole and Ranganatittu Trip

Friday, September 30, 2011 / Posted by Sharat / comments (1)


Nagarahole(snake stream in english)...!! Name itself is enough to get thrilled by the one who loves forests and nature.. Dense forest in southern part of Karnataka.

We were 8 colleagues and some ex-colleagues :P (Me, Shrimanth, Deepak, Lohith, Kiran, Sampath, Somanna and Naveen ) finally ready for the trip. One car and two bikes were on board. Shrimanth, sampath, somanna and me on bike and others were on car.

Day 1
Our plan was to start early in the morning but as usual we were delayed by 1 hr. So left at 6am in the morning. Had a breakfast on the way and were in Ranganatittu Bird sanctuary at 10.30am. Since it was just the start of a season in Ranganatittu, lots of birds yet to arrive from far away countries. Still we could see many birds. After the boat ride and couple of photo sessions we left for Nagarahole at 12 in the noon. 





 Reached Hunsur at 2pm and had lunch. We had a doubt whether 2 wheelers are allowed inside the national park but we were very excited to ride inside National Park and try our luck to spot wild animals. Reached the check-post at 3pm. which is around 35km from Hunsur. We had booked Murkal Guest house through a lohit's cousin who is a forest officer.But to our disappointment we were not allowed to take our bikes inside the  forest as wild elephants are in huge numbers.

We had two option, to take jeeps which are available 15kms away from the check-post or to take lift from fellow travelers. The wildlife safari is at another end of the National Park. Since we had planned to visit Irpu falls which is little bit far away from the other end of NP, we bikers left with no option but to take another long route  via gonikoppal to kutta which is just outside the other end of NP. We dropped our plans to stay inside the NP and planned to stay in a lodge @ kutta. This was the most difficult decision to make as we were very much excited to stay inside NP!!

Since the 4 wheelers are allowed to travel inside the  NP, it was decided that car will take the short route through the forest, book a lodge in kutta and bikers will take long route via Gonikoppal to kutta. Shrimanth left the bike and settled inside car!!

Me, Sampath and Somanna started our long journey through villages. It was bad roads everywhere!! We were forced to ride slowly by considering conditions of the road. By the time the car reached Kutta we were in ponnampet. Since it was already 5pm we dropped our plan to visit Irpu Falls and planned it for the next day.

We had taken Cricket bat and ball with us so that we can play somewhere on the way!!! But since we didnt had time to play along the way, we started playing when we reached kutta!!! I guess nobody would have traveled 250+ kms to play cricket!!

Day 2

We bikers had booked the car(for 400Rs ) to enter National Park early morning. Reached the Starting point of Jungle Safari at 7am. It was 1 and half hour of jungle safari and we were back to the starting point.


 There are many species of animals and birds in Nagarahole including Tigers. As jungle safari is pure luck, we were blessed to spot only deers, wild cat, wild pig, wild bear, mongoose, eagle, samba deer, variants of monkeys, peacock, wild hen etc.  Deers were everywhere.

Back to Kutta at 9am and had breakfast. Packed all the things and left for Irpu Falls which is around 15km away. Reached the base of falls at 10.30. The water was chilling cold, as if  someone had put ice over the falls. It was hardly 3-4 degrees!!! It was Ice water bath which I had never had..!! We could not feel our legs if we were in water continuously for more than 10 seconds!!

Then it was time to say good bye. Sun was burning hot. And we all departed at 12.30. Bikers took gonikoppal route and Car took jungle route again. After couple of breaks we were in Maddur Tifannys at 5pm. By that time Somanna  was about to die of starvation..!!! Eventhough we didn't had official lunch but had fruits/snacks on the way. After Peth pooja at Maddur Tifannys we decided to visit Kokkare Bellur which is 15km from maddur. When we reached the place we were actually disappointed with what we saw..!! There were few Flemingos staying in every tree in that village. We all thought it was waste of time and left as soon as possible.

Returned back to Bangalore by 7.30pm. The tour lacked the thrill of staying inside a National Park!! This was one trip where nothing worked as per the plan!! But still marked the first bike tour with colleagues.... After this Somanna and shrimanth came to know about the pain(:P !!) of travelling on bike more than 200km in a day and promised not to tour on bike again!! hahaha :-D :-D

Sharat

Tour Map....

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