[SDP]

A very good start of a travelogue. Love your attention to detail. Would wait for your photos.
PS : Its weird that your camera overwrote images after reaching 1000.

[StarVegabond]

One of my foreigner colleague (he is not a member here) who is reading this log could not understand where Kaas really is. He asked me to post a map if possible. for his benefit, i am posting a map of our route from Bangalore to Satara as well as the location of near by attractions

Bangalore to Satara route on NH4


Location of attractions near Satara. I still could not mark Tapola.Chalkewadi windmill farm is very close to Thosehar falls.


hope this will help the people like my colleague to understand the location better.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

i found myself somewhere near the Gauribidanur. We had missed the turn on the NH207 towards dobbaspet and went straight ahead.

Enquired the local people and then took a detour through some bad stretches of road, tiny hamlets and eventually jouned NH4 at Tumkur. Most probably the route followed by us is as below.

Good going Star.

Out of curiosity, I just checked our GPS log. We had not been to Koratagere . This is our trail.



Lepakshi seems near by Gauribidanur. Seems a nice drive to give sedans a real workout and feed your eyes with the views.

[ampere]

You can do the following:

NH4- Dobbaspet ->
Viti Devrayanadurga-Channarayanadurga-Siddarbetta-Madhugiri.


The come to Gauribidanur. Drive to Lepakshi via Hindupur and come back via NH7. (Lepakshi is on the road that connects Hindupur to NH7.

Makes a nice Sat outing.
Take the sunrise at Devarayanadurga, continue to Siddharbetta and Chanarayanadurga.
Visit WLS at Madhugiri along with fort and finally the temple at Lepakshi.

[StarVegabond]

Originally Posted by laluks

Good going Star.

Out of curiosity, I just checked our GPS log. We had not been to Koratagere . This is our trail.

I thought so initially (hence i wrote most probably), but then i got confused with the name koratagere. Good that your Mona darling is showing us the correct path.

Continuing with the story..

Date: 24th Sept

We were ready by 10:30 AM after having a good sleep till 9 AM, breakfast, checking the mails, attending to some office work over phone and some discussion with the reception guys about the kass and other attractions nearby.

10:30 AM to 12:00 We drove up the hill towards Kaas and stopped at several places for pictures. I am attaching here some of the decent (from my standard) pictures from me.

Our First Stop


First view of the Flowers


First view of the Landscape


First view of the Valley


Then i realized the fuel is really low, so i returned to satars for re-fuling and returned by 11:45, then we drove to Kaas Lake. This time allowed Lalu to take pictures and my wife and daughter to look around the large panaromic landscape.

Young student of the nature


Golfing Green


Road to Kaas Lake via Kaas Plateau


we drove through Kaas plateau, did not stop for pictures as there were already several vehicles and people exploring flowers.

Went straight to Kaas lake, then severe headache and hyper acidity struck me (due to sleeplessness of last few days). I took a tablet and we quietly spent about 1 hour at the Kaas lake

First view of the Kaas Lake


Some learning from Lalu uncle about measuring the depth of the lake


Then comes the Fog


Fog blurs the vision, no one knows there is a beautiful view behind the fog


After a couple of minutes again the it got de-fogged. and wonderful landscape appears in front of us.


this wonderful majic by the creator taught us to have patience, the clarity of direction and the next steps can be understood once the fog clears.

With the De-fogging, my headache and acidity vanished.It is surprising for me that it never toroubled me again those two days.

Then came the rains, we decided to drive further till bamnoli, the hairpin curves on the single lane road were in excellent condition throughout and most important, we were the only vehicle on the road.

more about it in the next post..

[laluks]

Day 01, 23.09.2010
Bangalore - Satara

This trip was more passion and less thoughts. Decisions were quick, twists were not discussed much, just accepted as it is. Well this turned out to be one of the best trips that I had recently.

I must thank Star, for not letting me touch the steering wheel. Three days of being a passenger, relaxed, jumping in and out clicking pictures, Star parking the car at vantage positions so that I need not get out in the rains for pictures, letting me listen to very good marathi songs, getting us good food, the list is endless - bottom line - I just freaked out in that freedom like a kid enjoying a carefree day out

I have to add a disclaimer for this trip. Pictures don't do justice to the beauty we had witnessed. The panoramas were too big to be captured in any camera. You have to see it to enjoy it. Further I have learnt that I really do not have the skills to capture natures beauty with my camera. I have failed miserably.

Let me put up some pictures from the initial detour that we had towards Gauribidanur. Hopefully it will give us a rough sketch.

Rough stretch of road


Straight roads through the village. Very scenic place




Beautiful Sunflowers









Twins



Sunflower Fields










Sunflowers turning their face away from the sun.


Sunflower showing the seeds


The accomodating farmer showing us the seeds


The weight of the seeds make the flower bow down


Sunflower field - one side of the crop has already became seeds, and the other side still flowers



Family Discussion about Sunflowers





Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting Starvegabond aka Starvega "Kanth"



Starvegabond in action


Castor Seeds


City Enjoying the beauty


StarVegabond and the City




Rays of hope - Seen near Chitradurga


Sun sets for the day


Starvegabond has drove comfortably and reached Belgaum by 20:00PM for a good dinner break at Sangam. Further another comfortable drive to reach Satara by 02:00AM.

One wonderful day, the wrong turn had taken us to the beautiful sunflower fields, and some good people.

Till I find more time signing off...

[ampere]

Sunset snaps are very nice.

Also where were those corn and sunflower fields?

[jacs]

Hey Star & Lulu,

Amazing snaps there! Kaas lake looks virgin & inviting, happy to see no plastics and waste papers .

Sunflower field looks beautiful and Star's curiosity looks even beautiful! Expecting to see some sunflower fields in Bengaluru soon .

I am sure Lalu would have already collected the seeds for his orchard.

[KRRaj]

Great Pictures. The Sunflower field a real bonus. Too bad I couldnt join in :-( Am sure I will be getting more jealous as the travelogue progresses

[mallumowgli]

Nice travelogue and some wonderful moments snapped, SVB.

Originally Posted by jacs

I am sure Lalu would have already collected the seeds for his orchard.

Quite right there, jacs

And hey Laluji, your other thread is hanging in limbo

[laluks]

Originally Posted by ampere

Sunset snaps are very nice.

Also where were those corn and sunflower fields?

Thanks ampere.
Co-ordinates for the sunflower field - 13.4382393(Lat) 77.3191428(Lon)

Originally Posted by jacs

Expecting to see some sunflower fields in Bengaluru soon .

I am sure Lalu would have already collected the seeds for his orchard.

You bet. I have not yet planted them

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

And hey Laluji, your other thread is hanging in limbo

Will take sometime to be back full fledged. :(
Weekdays am very busy with office and almost all the weekends we are travelling.

[StarVegabond]

It is great to see Lalu posting the pictures, i was very disappointed when i lost the sunflower farm pictures shot by me. Now the missing part of the story is available.

Thanks Lalu for the posts, despite your busy schedules.

moving further with the story of 24th Sept...

Reached Bamnoli by 2 PM, enquired about the boat ride, made immediately booking for a boat to go to trivenisangam, dattamandir and Tapola, while waing for the boat, made reservation for the home made Maharastrian Thali at the nearby home+dhaba.

While the boat arrives let me take you through the village called Bamnoli aka mini kashmir

Main road of the Bamnoli village, The Passion RED Gypsy belongs to the owner of the Dhaba (Hotel Santaji) which provides home cooked meals with local cusine. One needs to make reservation for the food, it is made to order. It appears certain Mr. Dell adapted the business model from this guy in Bamnoli.


Bamnoli Temple


Very attractive Gopura of the temple


Another road to natural Jetty


Near by attractions that could be visited from Bamnoli via boat


Chayaneez Vhej / NaanVhej...want to try ?


We were told that Vasota fort is behind the clouds, on a clear day it seems to be visible


Submerged Jetty outpost..we were told this is the max level of the Koyna reserviour


The attendent told that the Koyna dam is some 3-4 hours drive from Bamnoli via Satara - Umraj and one more town. in our guess it must be some 50 to 60 KMs..imagine the size of the Koyna reservoir.

View from the Jetty



View from the near by abandoned warehouse


We also found a bank (i forgot to take pictures)..i think it was Bank of Baroda the building was partly submerged, but bank was operating

Soon out boat arrived, we boarded in. Our contract was to go to Triveni Sangam, Shiva and Dattaguru temple and back, but on the way we also made additional contract to visit Tapola as well. The entire trip cost us RS 1500 for a 2.5 hour ride plus guide (operator of the boat himself) services


Boat owner + operator + guide and the tourists



coming up ..images from the Koyna reservoir, triveni sangam, dattaguru and Shiva temples, Tapola and Bamnoli itself..

I would go to sleep today leaving you with this picture...Imagine.

[StarVegabond]

After about 2 weeks of hectic running around, i have some time free till tomorrow night. Tomorrow is a holiday here in Bangalore, so i lookforward for a relaxed day as well as to complete this travelogue.

The Boat started on its Voyage. our first destination was Triveni Sangam.
My assumption was it would be a very holy place, probably would have some remarkable landmark. It happened to be otherwise. more in along with picture below.

Some landscapes seen from the boat are as below





triveni sangam of the koyna, solshi and the kandhati river


Some more landscapes




The Shiva and Dattaguru temple location is seen inthe picture below.

We had thought this to be an island, but it turned out to be otherwise.
more about it in the next post..

[vrprabhu]

Excellent pictures... you got to enjoy the nature in all its glory - early morning is always the best time to visit places like these.

BTW, I don't think it was the 'fog' you saw - it is more of a cloud formation, which transcends the hills from time to time. If you want to enjoy fog, head once again in the same direction from Bangalore and deviate to Pachgani / Mahabaleshwar in December / January. The fog smothers these places in white in these months - absolute bliss!

[jacs]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

After about 2 weeks of hectic running around, i have some time free till tomorrow night. Tomorrow is a holiday here in Bangalore, so i lookforward for a relaxed day as well as to complete this travelogue.

Star, beautiful place! Really nice snaps, waiting for more.

BTW what holiday? Its working day for us.