Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts

Wayanad

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Wanted to blog about the trip for a long time... Never managed to do so and its almost 6 months now. It was another event full trip with the duo Prem and Som .. Visited Muthunga, Soochipara falls, Edakkal caves and Kuruva islands
High points -
  • Managed to get home stay quite close to the Muthunga wild life sanctuary. As the cottages were booked or ventured to stay in tree house. It was an experience. Rest room was on the ground and bed room on the tree and bucket and a pulley to take our paraphernalia to the top.

    It took nearly an hour and lot of adjustments to take this snap without flash in the moon light.

  • Food at the home stay was simple and tasty. Taught the cook how to make pea-nut masala
  • We enjoyed the drive to Soochipara falls on winding roads through scenic Harrison tea estate, though we were getting restless due to the ever changing directions given by locals.
    From Wayanad

  • Thankfully the security guy at the Edkkal caves explained the stone carvings/painitings or whatever you call. Who is the king, queen etc.
  • Kuruva island is great place for birding - prize sighting was the racket tailed drongo. Others bird watchers had found 3-4 Black Baza. Its serene, calm and not that commercialized.
Low points
  • Biggest disappointment was the wildlife safari. We had asked Jeep guy to come at 6:00 clock to take us to the sanctuary. By the time he arrived it was 7:00 and by the time we went inside it was already 7:30 and every one had gone to their hidings. We did not even sight one Cheetal. Only wildlife we could see was Adjoint Stork and elephant from far away.
  • Getting directions turned out be very difficult due to language barriers. Even when we managed to convey we got different answers from every individual answered. Adding to the confusion were the milestones side by side showing different distances! At some stretch there were 3 sets of milestones with its own distance. I guess its real democracy out there. 1 meter might be 100 cm for some and 90 cm for other.
  • We could not visit the Chembra peak which is supposed to give very scenic view.
Here is the link to the notes I collected before the trip about Wayanad


Wayanad

Bandipur Selected Photos

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Took sometime to go through the photos and create a picasa web album. It did not turn up the way I was thinking. I guess it would be better if all the photos are visible on the blog. The upload takes a lot of time and 5 photos cane be uploaded at a time. Once uploaded picasa will give the html code to embed which is the link to albun. Next I would like to post a blog using Writely or Zoho writer

Bandipur
Sep 10, 2006 - 6 Photos




About Bandipur
How to reach: Bandipur is 220km from Bangalore. Can be reached through Mysore-> Nanjan Gud - Gundlupet. After Mysore, road conditions deteriorate.
Season: Just after the rain to March. The forest is deciduos so green coverage dcreases after January. Also Gaur and Elephant migrate to Kabini and Nagarhole in search of green food. But January and Febrauary are good months if you want to spot predators, Tiger and Leopard. Jan-Feb is the mating season for tigers and spotting chance increases and tigers will be moving around more in search of the mate. Spotting in pure luck. When I was there during last feb, tiger was spotted consecutively for 3 days before our visit but I was not lucky to see one. The JLR guyz even told that they have been spotting tiger or the leopard for the last one month. Bandipur also homes dhole(asiatic wild dog). Chittal herds(Spotted deer), Elephant herds and Sambar can be spotted very easilyy during 1 hour open Jeep Safari. In South India there are no Elephant safari as situation can get dangerous when wild elephants are spotted. There is elephant ride available and number of rides are limited based on the availability of green food to the elephants. So if you reach the spot after 9:00 AM there will be little chance of availability.
Stay: There are plenty of options including Jungle Lodges and Resorts which offers evening safari and morning nature walk along with package. Food and arrangements are good. In the night wild boars, chittal can be spootted inside the JLR compound.


From October 2nd - 8th is Wildlife week