The Trip
Bangalore - Srirangapatna - Hunsur- Bylakuppe - Harangi Dam - Dubare - Sidapur- Chetalli - Madikeri - Bhagamandala - Talacauvery - Madikeri - Chetalli - Sidapur - Pollibetta - Ammathi - Virajpet - Kadanga - Kakabe - Madikeri - Virajpet - Gonikoppal - Ponnampet - Hudikeri - Irpu Falls - Kutta - Nagarahole - Murkal - Hunsur - Srirangapatna - Bangalore
975 km, 4 days
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Day 1, August 28th, 2009
Bangalore - Srirangapatna - Hunsur- Bylakuppe - Harangi Dam - Dubare - Sidapur- Chetalli - Madikeri - Bhagamandala - Talacauvery - Madikeri
We left around 4AM from home. We had a nice drive till we find that outer ring road was blocked for some construction, took the deviations and touched Mysore road took the Srirangapatna shortcut. We reached
Krishna Raja Sagar Dam by 7.30Am just to see the flow from the bridge. You need not go to KRS, but take the left and join Hunsur road if you are going direct.
Hunsur Road(SH88) was superb all the way till Bylakuppe.
We reached Bylakuppe by 9AM and went directly to the
Golden temple at the
Namdroling Monastery.
The way to the golden temple
The golden temple
Swift resting
We then drove to
Kagyudpa Monastery to get some wonderful valley views and to take some rest. We finally left from here at 11AM.
We touched Hunsur road again and deviated to
Harangi Dam. We are not allowed inside the dam area any more, but you can see the flow from the gates outside. Since the area was a restricted site, we did not take any pictures. The water level in the dam was almost full.
From Harangi dam we took a nice scenic road to SH88 and joined it just at the intersection where the road to SH88B joins. SH88B goes via Madikeri - Sidapur - Virajpet and on. Since we byepassed Kushal Nagar, we have not seen the famous potholed roads.
We saw a horsy there with front legs tied together.
We saw a ghost tree.
In this road before reaching Sidapur you get
Dubare Elephant camp. Since we have been there before, we just drove there to see the flowing cauvery. There was decent flow, and unlike last time crossing by feet was not possible. We left Dubare by 12.30PM.
Cauvery at Dubare.
The road to Dubare.
We drove to Sidapur and then took the deviation to Madikeri via Chetalli. We reached Madikeri by 1.30PM. Stopped at Hotel Raj Darshan for Lunch. After lunch we found out the roads to Club Mahindra and reacched the resort by 2.30PM. The resort is located nearly 5Km away from Rajas seat. Nice location, and resort. Checked in and took rest till 4.00PM, before we started to Bhagamandala and Talacauvery.
We reached
Talacauvery at 5.30PM. The entire place was engulfed in thick fog. We spent 30 minutes there going up to the peak and in the temple.
We reached
Bhagamandala by 6.30PM.
We finally left back to the resort by 7PM and reached at 8.30PM. Had a heavy dinner with some kodava specialities and retired for thee day.
475Km for the day.