[prashkul]

Hi Friends,

Prologue:
I had recently gotten some work done on my Palio Stile in an effort to reduce cabin noise as well as to enhance the audio experience - 3M underbody coating, damping of all four doors and hatch door, and installing components in the front and oval coaxials in the rear. I was itching to go on a long drive to test these out. I always keep looking for excuses to take the car out for long drives, and was determined to not let go of this opportunity. So, we decided to make a quick trip to Shivanasamudra and Talakadu, of which we'd heard so much, but never been to. Myself, my wife and my younger brother did this trip on a Sunday about two weeks back. My wife has penned her first travelogue as work has kept me busy. Comments welcome.

Travelogue:
Here's my travelogue on one of my weekend trips to Gaganachukki & Bharachukki falls and Talakadu…

We decided to explore these places a day before our trip, we had no idea how the place would be, so my husband researched a bit on these places in team-bhp.com, we read many reviews on the same.

These reviews helped us a bit, as they informed us whereabouts of the places we were to visit. I'm writing some more things one can know before visiting these places.
We (me, my husband and my bother-in-law) left home (electronic city, Bangalore) in our car (Fiat Palio Stile) around 12 noon on a mild monsoon Sunday 20-Jul-2014. On the way the climate kept changing from place to place , sometimes hot and sometimes drizzling.

On the way we didn't find any proper family restaurant, so we decided not to stop until we reached destination. Well, we carried our food packed as we were aware of non-availability of proper hotel which we got to know from one of the reviews.

Finally we reached our destination around 3:00pm, both Gaganachukki and Bharachukki are located near to each other within a distance of 5-7Kms. We planned to visit Bharachukki first, so we proceeded for it. On reaching, we paid for parking and parked out car in the parking space. As it was Sunday, the parking was almost full and crowd was too high.

After parking we proceeded further to a view-point, where we saw Bharachukki waterfalsl from a distance and took some snaps as shown, well the climate was awesome as it was cool and the greenery added some more beauty to the scenery.

We proceeded towards the water fall, there were some 200 steps to reach the banks of river cauvery (waterfall) . We kept taking snaps at each step as it was irresistible to takes eyes off from the beauty of the waterfall . The waterfall has tremendous speed, one can experience the water splashes at the banks of the river. On reaching river bank, we saw the waterfall very close to our eyes, there were provision even to go near waterfall in a coracle, for which the coracle rider charged Rs.100 per head. So guys and gals I would suggest one to carry their rain sheets if one wishes to experience waterfall very close in a coracle ride. Since we didn’t carry any rain sheet, fearing we may get wet in the coracle, we dropped out, but saw many people having a thrilling coracle ride. We saw some street vendors making hot 'mirchi bhajji' and 'pakodas' near the river bank, since we couldn't resist having them, we ate few and then moved back climbing 200 steps upward to reach our parking, we took our vehicle a little away from parking place and found a barren land where we had our lunch, by the time we finished it was around 4pm.

While returning, we saw Gaganachukki at a distance from parking space near the Dargah. Well both the waterfall have their own beauty, Gaganachukki has got two viewing points as shown in the picture.
Since we were getting late so we left the place and on the way decided to visit Talakad as it was pretty near to these places at around a distance of 28kms, we took an interior path to reach Talakad, which touched the main road i.e. Bangalore road, and from this road, Talakad is at a distance of 5Km.

On reaching Talakad, since we were running out of time as it was already 6:30pm, we decided not to hire any guide and just visited the 3 most famous temples of Talakad - Vaidyanatheshwara Temple, Maruleshwara Temple and Pathaleshwara Temple. Vaidyanatheshwara Temple is located within reach from parking, but for Pathaleshwara Temple we have to walk a distance of 1Km in sand, I would say 'One must visit this place in either monsoon of winter, as the sand would be very hot to walk on a summer day. The temple has been excavated, as it is said that the temple was covered in sand. On walking further for another 1km comes the Maruleshwara Temple. After which we have walk back in the same route to reach back to our parking.

There are some tea-stalls and hotels situated which serves tea, milk and food near Vaidyanatheshwara temple. We had a cup of tea, which in fact tasted good.

Then we proceeded back our journey to Bangalore, we reached Bangalore around 9pm.

Finally I would like to conclude, visiting these places in monsoon is a bliss, as the waterfall would be awesome and one may feel heavenly experience at these 3 places.

[prashkul]

Some more pics for you to enjoy
As you can see, we spent lot of time at Bharachukki falls and very little time at Gaganachukki as we also wanted to cover Talakad on the way back to Bangalore.