An adventurous vacation to end the year 2020.Yeah! Finally, we zeroed on to Coorg for a three-day bike trip. A quick check with my partners in crime ☺ helped to finalize the route options.
KR Puram > Hebbal > Nelamangala >
Bellur Cross > Channarayapatna > Ramanathapura > Kushalnagar >
Jungle Lodges – 260 km
As I personally enjoy planning the trips and a nature lover. The two preferred choice
for stay was Nisargadhama and Jungle lodges.
Even having a call with District forest
office, Madikeri well ahead of planned dates and an email to them as per their advice,
I did not get a confirmation on reservation for Nisargadhama. Hence, I started
exploring other option of jungle resorts.
To my pleasant surprise, Jungle resorts –
Dubare showed up 50% discount on their regular tariff. I did not wait too long
to decide and finished the booking. With that said, we were all set to explore
Coorg on two bikes
- ·
Me (Mahesh) & Triveni
(Electra 350)
- ·
Satish & Kathya (Classic 350)
Oh yeah, I had got my Electra seat modified
to suite for long travel. It was worth enough to do it before the journey J
We made a plan to leave on a weekday around 6.15
A.M. to escape the brunt of Bangalore's rush hour.
Our itinerary was as
follows:
Day 1(18-December) - Drive from Bengaluru to Jungle
lodges, Dubare. I was hoping for pleasant, smooth drive. My Electra had plan B
for us. While we were nearing Kunigal the bike stopped on to move. We were
fortunate enough to find another RE travel enthusiast (Shubojit Ghosh) who
volunteered to check the bike and hinted us to check the battery, I quickly
found that one of the battery cable was not making enough contact due to
corrosion and had eventually cut. Now we had an idea on what was wrong,
Shubojit Ghosh pulled his tool kit and fixed the cabling and Electra was ready
to start. Much thanks to Shubojit for his kind help. This caused the delay in trip
by approximately 1.5 hour.
The other bike “Classic
350” had no issues and cruising along nicely. We started the journey and finished
delicious breakfast at Swati delicacy, near Yediyur. Resumed our journey and
quickly lost in lush green landscape between Chennarayapatna to Ramanathapura.
Again, Electra had a surprise in store for us. The rear wheel got punctured, and
we got it fixed near Kushalnagar. Meanwhile, I was regularly getting calls from
Basavanna (JLR guest incharge, Dubare). Finally, we reached the destination
Jungle lodges (JLR), Dubare at 4 P.M. JLR boat driver sailed us past the river
Kaveri and completed the boarding formalities.
We had a quick tasty lunch
(can consider it as snacksJ) and started off to Jungle safari which is
most exciting part of the trip. We were able to spot Bison herd, spotted deer,
Sambar deer, and Peacock. It did not meet our over-expectation though. We were
expecting Tiger, Leopards, wild elephants etc. J
However, the guide provided us with good information during safari about his
encounters, wildlife in general, Elephant taming etc. It was a good experience.
Day 2 – Day started at 6 A.M by a wakeup call of chirping birds in the midst of Jungle. Had coffee and went to a nature walk in the jungle accompanied by a guard, and we were able to spot deer, fresh elephant dung (may be 2 days old). As we walked along river Kaveri sand, we enjoyed the nature with big old trees, bushes, sand etc. After breakfast, played some rope games, which tested our strength and headed straight to Elephant camp, which was a wonderful experience seeing them bathing, triumph, playing, having food etc.
Due to Covid-19
restriction, tourists were not allowed to touch or to go near elephants, got a
chance to experience elephant water spray couple of times. There are around 30
elephants in the camp; few of them participate in Mysore Dasara procession.
There was one naughty baby elephant, which was playing with the herd, and it
was endearing. However, the elephants lacked the freedom, perhaps that's what
captivity does to one's soul. We returned to room and were ready for checkout
by 11.45 A.M. Bye Bye Jungle lodge!
Started our journey to Harangi
dam hoping to enjoy the walk on Dam Bridge. However, upon reaching the
reservoir we came to know about the entry restriction onto the bridge, also no
water outflow. The park is nicely maintained though. Had lunch in the reservoir
campus and resumed our journey towards Bagamandala via Madikeri. Reached hotel
Mayura, KSTDC, and experienced an evening walk in cool wind followed by dinner.
Day 3 – Woke up at 6 A.M and headed to Thalakaveri
(7 km from Bagamandala). The weather was cold and wind was blowing high at Thalakaveri.
We loved the terrain. Another disappoint was restricted entry to Brahmagiri hill
L Returned back to hotel Mayura by 9 A.M and
finished breakfast.
Started our journey
towards Bangalore, plan was to reach Bangalore by six in the evening.
Considering the bike breakdown experience, we decided to take the below route
just to be on the safer side of bike service centers availability.
Bagamandala > Madikeri
> Kushalnagar > Periyapatna > Hunsur > Srirangapatna > Indiranagar
> KR Puram – 310 km
Finished lunch at Periyapatna and finally reached the destination by 6.30 P.M.
Had evening snacks and reached home by 7.30 P.M.
Overall, it was a fun filled
trip, tiring at times and most importantly weather was very much ideal.
Looking forward for more
such bike trips.
