| BHPian
Join Date: May 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Operation Tiger: Wayanad
My wife, who is my first love, wanted to take me out for my birthday to see if we could find “some” wild animals, which is my second love. We both took a week off from our hectic schedules and decided on going to Wayanad because:
• We just had a week, so driving all the way to North India wouldn’t have worked.
• Since Wayanad was still on our to-do list this year, and knowing that Kerala is as magical during rains as in Summer, we didn’t want to miss it.
• The last time we were there in Wayanad – a year or so back, we saw his majesty the Tiger during one of the night drives arranged by the place where we stayed and then a Leopard in broad day light while sitting in our balcony.
The question was, would lightning strike twice? The only way to know was to venture out and see for ourselves. We soon got about charting out a detailed itinerary for our trip.
I don’t really like National Parks, nor do I like going in those noisy safari jeeps crammed with shouting kids. It is just not my idea of fun. Having said that, I love animals – both wild domestic ones and over the last 30 years or so, I have been tracking them and yes, have been very lucky to see most of them – big and small in the wild. What I usually do is, find out remote areas where sightings are reported and head off to such off-the-beaten track places, spend a week scouting for animals with the help of local, learned folks. One such place that I have frequented in Kerala is Thirunelli in Wayanad district and there is a small little home-stay which is set in the middle of the jungle and it is called the “Jungle Retreat Wayanad” where I have had some wonderful experiences in the past as mentioned earlier.
About the home-stay:
It is run by one Mr.Anil (top man!), who is based out of Bangalore, and he is in Wayanad during the weekends. Mr. Pramod the Manager is stationed in the home-stay and is our primary point of contact for anything and everything, ably supported by his staff, most of them are local tribal folks. Wonderful, knowledgeable folks and you can reach them using their website – jungleretreatwayanad.com
To maximize our chance of spotting the striped beast, we booked for five nights in June, and did not think much about it until we had to pack on Thursday night.
Our itinerary evolved after many discussions with Anil and it looked like:
• Day 1 Check in, relax
• Day 2 Early morning safari ride to Karmadu (inside Nagarahole) Thirunelli
• Day 3 Muthanga sanctuary, Night safari & sit-up at the watchtower in the night
• Day 4 Trek to Paksipathalam and the Caves, bonfire dinner at night
• Day 5 Junglre trek, swim in the river, relax and have a low-key, peaceful birthday
• Day 6 Check out after Lunch
The car the route the nuts & the bolts…
We took our beloved, trusted Tata Safari Dicor 3L 4 * 4 for the drive, an ideal option because it is comfortable for my family of 3 and also because of the fact that we travel with all our kit and caboodle, it had to be large enough to hold everything from my trekking shoes to my wife’s hair dryer! So filled him up a day in advance, cost me Rs 2800/- for a full tank, it should give me another 600Kms easily, got the oil/brake/wheels/lights checked – all good to go!
I have done the Bangalore Wayanad drives multiple times, so didn’t really need much directions. The chosen road was Bangalore, Mysore, Hunsur, Nagarahole, Tholpetty and then towards Thirunelli Temple~ 240Kms in total. We started early in the morning, by 6-ish, and soon we were hitting 100Km/hr on the Mysore highway. By 8ish we were in Mysore, the city was coming to life, but we managed to miss the traffic jams and soon we were on SH88 towards Hunsur. The roads are excellent and by the time we reached Hunsur, it was 9am. We had to take a short detour as road works were happening and by 9:30am we were at the forest check-post at Nagarahole. We knew we wouldn’t stand a chance of seeing anything apart from the spotted deer, but again, when you are in the jungle, you just don’t know what lay ahead. The windows were rolled down, car steady at 30Kms/hr, wife had her fingers on the camera, our eyes peeled for anything Orange with Stripes or rosettes!
No Tigers of course – but lots of wildlife life even at 10 in the morning! Elephant with her calf, Bull Gaur, tons of spotted deer, wild boar and what not!
We soon reached the other end of Nagarahole and then took a left towards Tholpetty. A km or so down the road we reached Kerala – clearly the roads were much better in Kerala than in Karnataka. Soon the landscape changed from thorny bushes to large mist covered open areas (even at 10:30am in the morning), making the drive a very pleasurable one.
A very comfortable early morning drive and by 11:00 am we were in the retreat. It looked very green; a clear indication that summer was not as harsh as we’d have thought and that the rains had set in.
The retreat is best described as a very accessible, but secluded piece of land in the midst of jungle. So the view you have is just the jungle on all the sides and the room that we had give an open view into the grasslands ahead of you.
The entire farm is around 10 acres, it was not a typical commercial joint with landscaped walkways, large dining units etc. On the contrary, it looks very private – something like a well kept farm house with 2 or 3 accommodation units, an excellent outdoor dining and lounge from where you could see the grasslands, a bamboo hut and of course an wonderful watchtower in the grasslands – where we spent many hours waiting for and watching animals parade by.
The first day was for relaxation and catching up with Pramod on the sightings and what all we missed in the last 1 year or so. That is exactly what we did, spent the entire afternoon sitting in the lounge going through some books they had there, & then gazing at the grasslands. By 4ish we were served tea with some cookies and right on cue came the spotted deer herd – around 40 of them. We went to the watchtower and spend a few hours listening to the birds and watching the deer. We also saw a mongoose busy digging into the ground, perhaps in search for its dinner. By 8:00 dinner was served in the dining area – typical Kerala cuisine, had chicken curry, fresh vegetables, rice, dal and rotis. We enjoyed the dinner as we listened to all those wonderful jungle sounds till around 10:30 before hitting the bed.
I have to admit, I am a lousy photographer and I have a very basic point and shoot camera. I know, with all the drives and what not I do into the wild, it’d be worthwhile to have a professional camera, but the ISO settings , the exposures and all that technical details is a bit too much for me. So I’ll stick to my point and shoot camera. Please excuse the clarity of the pictures.
Day -1 sightings: Elephants, Gaur, Chital, Wild Boar
Day 2 held many surprises for us. We started early and after a cup of coffee and a few biscuits, we went to Karmadu. It is a 20 minute drive and within the first kilometer itself we had to stop and wait for a herd of elephants to give us way, as they were standing on the road eating grass & bamboo. There were perhaps 5 or 6 of them, with a calf of around 5 months old.
A male Gaur was spotted standing next to the road and eating the grass – perhaps it was a good 6ft tall at the shoulder, massive animal. Then we ran into a herd of Gaurs at the next turn – all these within 5 minutes of leaving the retreat, a clear indication that it was one wild place! The drive to Karmadu is a very exciting one, as the road starts to narrow down and because of the large bamboo bushes on either side of the road, your visibility is very restricted. Thrilling ride where we saw the usual Elephant herd, Chital, Gaurs… but there was no Tiger to be seen.
The afternoon was spent at Iruppu falls, it had water and it a good option for a afternoon dip – though the water is very cold. By 6 we had dried ourselves and were in the Jeep heading back to the retreat and from there to the Thirunelli temple. The drive was uneventful till we were again close to the retreat and we saw a pack of wild dogs lying on the road. Unique opportunity for some photos and as we were enjoying this sight, Akhil, our guide got a call and informed us that there was a Tusker on the road 1 Km ahead. Having spent enough time with the dogs we decided to go see the Tusker. A minute into the drive we passed the retreat on our right and by that time the sun had gone down and we had the headlights on. And then, a few turns down the road we saw him – it was not the Tusker, but a male Tiger right on the road side sniffing something on the road side. The light from the vehicle was on him and his Orange coat was like fire with dark black stripes embedded. The sheer presence of the beast was so captivating that all we was gaze at him, before he lifted the tail sprayed his scent on the tree and then turned, faced towards us, gave us a look before lazily turning back and walking into the undergrowth. The entire incident would have happened in a span of 5~6 seconds; seconds where I was completely senseless captivated by a beautiful beast! I have seen the Tiger perhaps 10 to 12 times in the wild, but each time you see it, you are knocked senseless by this majestic animal. Needless to say, this was the highlight of the trip – or was it really? We didn’t really sleep well that night, and you know why! We went out to the watchtower with the flashlight hoping that he’d come again into the vicinity – after all he was only a few hundred meters away from where we were staying. Come he didn’t.
Day3
The plan was to wake up early and go to Muthanga National Park – which was perhaps 60 minutes away. Keeping in mind the sighting we had in/near the retreat were much better than the ones we had in Karmadu/Nagarahole, we decided to kill the Muthanga plans. Maran, the tribal person had all these stories of the wonderful and the weird, so we decided to go for a trek towards the area where we saw the Tiger. We walked through the main road and in 5 minutes we were at the stunted tree, it was bright and sunny and so the chance of us chancing upon the Tiger was remote. We scouted around for some visible mark, there weren’t any on the ground. But soon Maran showed a scratch mark on a tree perhaps a good 9 ft from the ground. If it was indeed the Tiger, it was a huge one. The afternoon was spent lazing in the retreat browsing through my Kindle. We dozed off in the hammock tied under a tree. Another day spent in total relaxation. It was interesting to note that we did not see any spotted deer in the grasslands during the last two days and it was attributed to the presence of the Tiger so close by. After dinner we had planned to go for the night safari which is where the folks from the farm took us out in the night in a Jeep with search lights and powerful torches to look for animals. The ideal time was said to be at around 9:00 @ night and soon we were driving down the road in search of animals. Even before we got into the Jeep we could hear elephants breaking bamboo and other trees at a distance. And since we had already seen the Tiger, nothing less would satiate our hunger. There was no Tiger though, but 2 hours spent driving in the night was filled with anticipation and excitement. Though we had all these torches and all we had to do was to keep our eyes open for these animals, most of the times it was our driver cum guide Pramod who spotted them. It comes with experience, knowing where to look and what to look for. We did see the usual ones – elephant herds, one lone bull elephant tearing into a teak tree, a herd of Gaur, a few Sambar deer and one mouse deer which is not much bigger than a rabbit.
Day 4
We had planned on going to Pakshipathalam, but because of the rain, we decided against it. Another interesting thing to mention is that we kept on hearing alarm calls from the Chital all through the night and it was clear that some carnivore was moving around. We came down to the gazebo to watch the mist lift off the field and when Pramod came in with the morning tea, he mentioned that he had sighted a leopard while going back after dropping us after the night safari ride, and he attributed the alarm calls to perhaps a kill it had made in the adjoining forests. Needless to say, it got us all excited and wanted to try and find the kill even though Pramod said it would be rather dangerous to go after it. After a bit of persuasion, the both of us along with Pramod and Maran – the local adivasi tracker started our walk towards where they thought the kill was. We were armed with some bamboo sticks and Maran had a large knife to clear the undergrowth. We soon left the main road and started climbing up a small hillock, perhaps 200 meters from the farm. In a few minutes we came upon the pugmarks quite clearly imprinted on the ground – it was said that it was a female leopard, perhaps 6 yrs old or so. We followed track for half hour, but soon we started encountering rocks and lost the trail. Moreover, it was lantana bushes all around and the kill could have been anywhere. After debating how safe it was to press forward, we all agreed and decided to retrace our steps back. Pramod consoled us saying that we could go for a drive in the night, park the car in one of those crossing points and he was pretty sure that the leopard would go back to its kill in the evening – and that is what we did!
By 7:30pm the roads become deserted, and soon we were in the car, waiting on the side of the road hoping that the leopard would cross. As though by some inexplicable agreement, we soon started the Chital giving its alarm calls, it was coming from our right. It went on continuously for 10 minutes or so and then it was all silent. We sat in the car, windows down, hoping for some sound to give the cat away. It was a dark night, the lights were off and we had to rely on the sounds than the sights. What happened next was incredible. Pramod gently touched my hand and I could see him point to our right and then I could the Leopard come into view in the dim light from the stars. Fantastic cat! I had the camera ready and ended up taking a lousy shot – but I got him alright! The sudden flash didn’t startle him as he crouched a bit and then slowly continued his walk towards the other side of the road – in a very unhurried manner. It was perhaps 10 to 20 feet away from the car. The beauty of it is, the homestay was less than 300meters from the crossing point. It is an incredible feeling to know that in a radius of 300 meters or so, there was a wild leopard and a Tiger somewhere! We were amidst great company!
Day 5
After an early breakfast and before the sun was up in the sky, we decided to head out to the forest stream. We had 2 options, either to trek to the stream or to take a Jeep to the point, we decided on the latter purely because it was told to us that there were elephants on our trekking path and that it was not safe to walk. It was a drive towards Thirunelli temple and in a few minutes we parked the Jeep and down we went down the large rocks and on came the river into our view. It was not a fast moving river, water was crystal clear gently flowing over the rocks. There were some large huge forest trees that had fallen down and it like an ideal, secluded spot for a swim. We spent a few hours in the stream and we were at the retreat in time for lunch. A beautiful Kerala style lunch in plantain leaves were served for us and it had around 10 different types of curries all neatly laid down – it was the birthday special and was extremely healthy and tasty. The afternoon was spent relaxing in the farm and in the night we did hear a chorus of alarm calls of the spotted deer. Perhaps it was the Tiger or Leopard, all we did was listen to the alarm calls getting repeated over and over but it was from the other side of the hills. On the last night we could see the most amazing moon rise from the outdoor lounge. Soon the moonlight spread across the grasslands giving us an excellent view of the surrounding areas in the night.
The next morning it was time to bid adieu to Wayanad, we wanted to leave early to beat the traffic during the peak hours in Bangalore – but not before we took the jungle awareness trek, which is where Maran and Pramod takes you around the farm in the hope of spotting some animals. We did see the regular ones – a herd of elephants, there were 3 in total, they didn’t see us as we were down-wind, so we could creep up to 50 feet from them. Then we saw a long tusker, and since he also saw us, we decided to keep a good 300 feet from him. Needless to say, there were deers everywhere!
We did the trek in an hour and by 9am we were done with our breakfast as well, settled the bills – Rs 19,990/- all inclusive for the two of us for 5 nights. After exchanging pleasantries and promising to visit again, we bid the folks goodbye and hit the road. What was till then a clear day soon turned cloudy and we soon ran into a thunderstorm. So the drive took us a little more time than we had expected, but Wayanad looks just wonderful in rains as well.
Overall verdict: Wayanad is an ideal place for the wildlife lovers. You can plan your itinerary for 3 to 5 days as there is much to see and explore. My 2 cents would be to keep your itinerary light because it is also an excellent place to relax and unwind amidst nature. If you are like me, looking for an off-beat wildlife vacation, you may want to try out Jungle Retreat Wayanad. As for my Bday, well, I can’t think of better company to spend the special day with – breakfast with the Tiger & dinner with the Leopard! |
4th July 2011, 15:41
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Thanks
I really wish this smilie was the other way around. 