Weekend trip to Nagarhole/Wayanad (pics)

[kvish]

I have never written a travelogue till date, so my first attempt shall be dominated by pictures with very little writing!

It is a brilliant time to travel to Nagarhole to witness lush green forest and lots of birds. Its not really a good time to spot animals since they have abundance of everything right where they stand. They dont really need to venture out. Shrubs and bushes too hamper visibility and dont really help the cause.

Spotted quite a few animals including bisons(herd of them), spotted deer, sambar deer, mouse deer ( have my doubts ince it was a very short sight before it vanished into the bushes), civet cat, rabbits, wild boar, mongoose, elephants (more on this later), langoors and some lovely birds.
Around 50% of the sightings were from the main road itself.

We also ventured into Wayanad forest reserve at night with focus lights. That was the most amazing part of the tour. Watching glowing eyes popping out from the jungle is really cool!

Now for pictures: The first set (More to follow soon)

The forest:





The animals:




Herd of bisons running berserk behind our jeep.


Bison shot at night.


Kutta: A small town after Nagarhole is where we stayed. Beautiful town with so much to see nearby. Known for coffee and pepper.



Iruppu falls, about 7Km from Kutta, in the Brahmagiri range.

[Torqueguru]

Hey, awesome pictures! well done buddy!

[sammyboy]

Incredibly lovely pics bro. Thanks for sharing them with us.

[dadu]

Nice for the first writeup and excellent pictures but please also update:

- The route taken and road condition

- Distance travelled and time taken with experiences inbetween

- Where did you stay/ cost and the feedback.

[akroy]

Nice pictures kvish, hope to see some more. I did this route during my first coorg trip but I am yet to see those falls and viewpoints. will reserve that for the next visit.

A travelogue also demands other parameters like time / road conditions / Hotels-resorts / Car-FE etc etc. Kindly update them as well.

Abhi

[Bigzero]

Wow! Great pics!! Thanks Kvish, you have made my day!

I agree with akroy and dadu here - it will be great if you can add some more details about your trip.

Also: Which camera and lens do you use?

[sushrutha]

WOW .. Fantastic pics ...
The first one is real masterpiece.. It's more of a wallpaper to me now ...
By the way which camera do you use ?

[Sks_Biker]

Nice pictures Karthik! Especially the first two are great. Post up the rest of the series.

PS: I guess you would have had better pictures of the deer had you taken the 'other' lens and camera

[kvish]

Originally Posted by Sks_Biker

Nice pictures Karthik! Especially the first two are great. Post up the rest of the series.

PS: I guess you would have had better pictures of the deer had you taken the 'other' lens and camera

Hey Keerthi,
Actually I was in 2 minds whether to borrow the canon 350D with the 100-400mm L lens! That would have been awesome, but its scary with such expensive equipment especially when its raining !! I am just dying for a tele lens now. The pics of the deer and elephant are cropped, there is some loss of detail.

Will post the rest of the pics later today.

Originally Posted by sushrutha

By the way which camera do you use ?

Originally Posted by Bigzero

Also: Which camera and lens do you use?

Thanks Sushrutha, bigzero, sammyboy and torqueguru! I use a pentax K100D with a sigma 17-70mm lens.

Originally Posted by dadu

Nice for the first writeup and excellent pictures but please also update:

- The route taken and road condition

- Distance travelled and time taken with experiences inbetween

- Where did you stay/ cost and the feedback.

Oops! some more information that was missed earlier.

Route taken: Bangalore-Srirangapatna-Yelwal-Hunsur-Nagarhole-Kutta
Road conditions is really good thanks to Rahul Gandhi's recent visit to Nagarhole! (good roads only for VIPs)

Distance travelled: Around 235km to Kutta from Bangalore
We started off at 6 and reached Nagarhole entrance at around 10:30.
Reached Kutta which is around 35-40Km from Nagarhole through the forest at 12. since we were going very slow trying to spot animals.

Itenary in detail:
Left Bangalore at 6:00am sharp.
Reached Nagarhole at 10:30 with breakfast stop at Shivalli MTR (after Channapatna) Reached Kutta at around 12:15pm.
Had arranged for jeep to go to Nagarhole safari. Costed 600 for jeep and 1000Rs for entry (4ppl). Left to Nagarhole at 4:00pm. safari was for around 1.5hours. Superb greenery and vegetation. Really rejuvinating!
Headed back at 6;00pm
Headed for a night ride through Wayanad forest reserve at 9:45pm.
Went around for 1 hour. Amazing drive in the jeep.
Next day morning 6:45am: Went to Wayanad (tolpetti) reserve for a safari. 500 for jeep and 200 for entry. Apparently forest dept at Wayanad have cleared up some bushes around the path of the safari thereby giving more visibility. Whether that is good or not is debatable! But visibility is much better. But no animal spotting apart from a herd of bisons.
Came back at 8:30 and headed to iruppu falls at 10.Iruppu falls is around 7Km from Kutta. There is a temple there too. Looks like its quite popular among school and college trips. It was quite crowded. Spent a couple of hours there, headed back to the homestay, had lunch and started the slow journey back through the Nagarhole forest. After Nagarhole exit it was a nice swift drive back to Bangalore.

We stayed at a homestay managed by Mr Manu Thithira. The homestay is excellent and food is good too. It costed around 1300 per person per day.
PM me for the contact details.

The car: FIAT Adventure. It was awesome driving experience. This was my first trip to the forest reserve on the adventure. I really enjoyed driving it. Boy! the car is rock solid at 120!!

[ravibhat]

Excellant pictures! wow amazing time I would say Good roads would tempt any person who would like to travel a lot!

Regards,

Ravi.

[kvish]

Some more pictures.

First two taken during sunrise enroute Wayanad sanctuary.




Peacock (actually quite ordinary: a 100% crop)


Butterfly drinking water at iruppu falls. First time I am seeing butterflies feeding on water


Just as we were heading back, we say a ford ikon stationary on the road. Clearly they were looking at something. Head closer and wow! a huge tusker right on the road. The guy was really courageous ( I always fear that I will stall the engine under panic, so I was about 10-15mts from him)

The elephant gave a couple of glances at the car but the ikon wouldnt budge, infact started coming back towards the elephant. One fellow came out of the window to start taking pictures. Next minute, the elephant charged at them. Here is the pic. The ikon was blocking the road too, so I didnt dare to cross the narrow road with a tusker in between. It went into the woods a couple of minutes later.

[shuvd]

Absolutely brilliant pictures!! Thanks for sharing.

[PVS]

Superb set of pics. Thanks for sharing!!

[mjothi]

WOW.. the butterfly pic is amazing.. so much detail... I love it. Thanks for shares buddy.
Btw, what is that water sort of thing in between the butterfly and leaves?

[menonrajesh]

Great snaps there!
And hats off to the Ikon guy..