Reference: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...org-kutta.html Special Thanks: fortuner71, harshal, Ampere, dhanu@DJ & Fauji for all valuable inputs.
Not to forget: Our beloved car (Maruti Ritz)
Last but not the least: MMI
To surely forget: all drunkards met enroute to double check on MMI
Disclaimer: My first travelogue. Prologue: One fine morning as usual after reaching office when I saw my priority to do it was to check gmail. And there I am checking it . Fb , news etc follows that in order. The list remains same all weekdays. Ok so had got a mail from my bro in blore that we all are going to go to coorg one weekend and he would be arranging everything. There my mind starts immediately thinking of a road trip!! Awesome.
Coorg: Is situated on the Western Ghats of Karnataka in South India. One trip to Coorg and it’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. It has incomparable scenic beauty, lush green valleys, coffee plantations, teak wood forests & majestic mountain ranges.
But the predominant entity here is nature at its best.If you’re the type who likes to mingle with nature, romance in the mountains, feel the tingle of the cool and gentle breeze, watch leaves flutter in dance-like movements and hear sounds of birds fill the air, then Coorg is just the place for you.!
The trip: After much wait finally the time came for us to pack bags and start on a road trip to coorg. The planning was being done since two months (pretty long). The team was me, my wife, my bro and his wife. So it was plain and simple that we two would drive the way and the ladies would give us company with their occasionally good jokes or would rather sleep in the backseat.
I had left Mumbai on 16th Dec (Friday) to Pune. The plan was to stay back at pune for the night and then start our journey next day early morning. We left Pune the following day at 4.30 am. The air was chilly and roads were predominantly truck drivers.
We had all printout of routes from Tbhp and also our MMI.The MMI shows the best route via Nice road (blore) whereas we had been advised not to take that one as it would mean some extra kms.
Reached Kolhapur at around 7.30 and stopped for breakfast at Sai international. Good hotel and pretty good Poha.
We left around 8.15 from Kolhapur and crossed a river (don’t remember the name though) . Stopped for some pictures
Kept driving on NH4 till we had to take a diversion to get to hiriyur and from there to hunsur. Had lunch in a not so good restaurant there.
We reached hunsur around 5ish from where the confusion started. Now we were asking guys around for the directions and finally they asked us to go towards nagarhole national park. We reached the entrance around 7 and they said its closed and take a diversion to right. Basically the road is Y shape, and so we took the other route and travelled maybe around 15 kms on a very bad stretch.
We reached some place wherein when we enquired for “kutta” around 9 pm. To our surprise they said we have reached our destination. Now the ordeal began , we called the home stay guy and told him we have reached kutta bus stand . he told us to wait near canara bank but all we could find is vijaya bank. After lot of enquiry we realized that we have reach some place known as HD kotya (don’t know if I am spelling it right) . So there is a road from here as well which goes to kutta but again that is also closed from 6pm to 6 am.
Our homestay guy (rakesh) insisted that we stay back somewhere there as now it would be very late to take the gonikopal route back to kutta. So finally we stayed back in a malayli run hotel which was quite famous there . The accommodation was decent enough for four of us and we were charged 1ooo bucks for the night. Next day we left around 7 am , passed through the national park and reached kutta..Finally !
Parked our cars in kutta bus stand from where rakesh had arranged jeeps to pick us up. The next 13 kms uphill to reach the homestay was a tough time. The road was so bad and no car apart from the likes of jeeps or other 4x4 would have reached there. I realized how good cars Mahindra do manufacture. It was an off roading experience for all I could imagine. The driver then told us that had we visited during rains the road would have been more bad with mud etc..OMG!
The homestay we had arranged was by the name “Bethel” and was one awesome place which made us really feel out of the world. Rakesh was also such an enterprising person and he is a retired chef. The food was really very nice .I can guarantee the veg food as all of us were vegetarians and non veg was not cooked at all. some pics of the homestay
Enjoyed staying there and visited irrupu falls , wayanad sanctuary among others. some pics of the falls and sanctuary. We did not get major sightings of wildlife though we did visit nagarhole & wayanad (kerala) sanctuaries. All we could spot was some deers, peacocks and a bison.
Basically the idea was to relax and we came back fully rejuvenated.
Summary: a very memorable trip.
Distance covered: 2030 (Pune & back)
Avg KMPL: 13.77
Toll exps: 1050 (2 new tolls coming up)
Petrol exps: 10800