After lunch, we were already lost in enjoying the nature. Beautiful scenery around the Gol Ghar dining hall included river view, huge trees that were giving us the cool and fresh breeze and a view of river bank on the other side of the river which looked as if it was an island virtually. It was already 4pm when the guide came and asked us to get ready for the forest safari. At that point of time, still most of us were busy in clicking a bunch of photos. As per the directions of the staff over there, we assembled at a point for further instructions by the staff about forest safari, do’s and dont’s etc., Our group of 24 people were split into 3 smaller groups to fit into the vehicles for jungle safari. We travelled through a couple of villages and got into the road that we had taken a couple of hours back before breaking into the actual Jungle roads. No more asphalted roads after that check point which prohibits unauthorized entry into the forest.
Our guide Basil had a sound knowledge of the jungle including all minute details of flora and fauna of Nagara Hole Reserved forest. We got to know that he was a science graduate in botany and he served for Karnataka governments forest department at Dandeli Wild life Sanctuary before getting transferred to Kabini just 3 months back. We were able to identify Teak, Yellow teak, rose wood, Matti, Honne, Nandi and eucalyptus trees by the end of this safari. While going through the forest, we spotted a number of deer groups. Each of the group had atleast 15 deers while the largest group must have had around 150 deers. These groups consisted of Spotted Deers and Samba deers. Apart from that we saw a couple of dancing peacocks, langoors, a couple of Elephant groups busy in filling their ever hungry mammoth stomachs. Elephants group included a number of Tuskers [Male elephants] with long tusks, while the smaller baby elephants were following their parents. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see any leopart or tiger. However, the chirping sound of the birds made us feel about what we miss the most in our city life. Rain started drizzling in drops as we progressed inside the forest and it was a great experience for sure.
Then in the evening we got settled down in our cottages. We were allocated 5 cottages facing the river and whole of Maharaja Bunglow rooms were reserved for us. Usually these Maharaja Bunglows will be reserved for VIP’s. We all got refreshed and assembled for a movie on wild life shot in and around Nagara Hole forest area. Then it was the time for dinner and the food was way beyond our expectations in terms of variety and taste. We all enjoyed the rest of the evening at bonifire. Our play masters had a number of games planned and enjoyed every moment of it to the max. Around 11pm, we all started our way back towards the rooms. I slipped on to bed while many still continued to roam around and to chit chat for some more time.
Next day, early morning we all got ready for a boat cruise though the river and it started around 7 am after morning coffee. This boat travel was another memorable event of the stay there. We were able to spot a number of birds including great black woodpecker, the Indian Pitta and the green imperial pigeon. Some other species found are dove, parakeet, bulbul, bee-eater, hornbill, peacock, woodpecker and species of eagles. Again we got disappointed as we couldn’t spot crocodile. This boat cruise lasted for about a little over couple of hours. Breakfast was on cards after that boat ride, which was delicious with a wide variety of eatables that I had not anticipated for sure. By 10:30am we checked out our rooms and started playing in the grass with a number of games again till 12pm before we started our journey back to city life.
I missed my Canon SD630 since my cousin Praveen took it with him for his US visit. You can see some of the pictures captured by Pranesh here. I will link to others photos as and when they get a to upload to flickr. That was surely an amazing experience to stay close to nature and I would surely take my family along to the same place sometime soon.
Outing at Kabini Jungle river lodge resorts was rocking. I am still in the relaxing mode after a great time we had in the forests around Kabini river. My experience at this forest resort has been mesmerizing and will be cherished for a long time. I will share all possible highlights of this trip from beginning to end in this article. So, buy yourself a bit of time to go through this post and by the time you are going to finish reading this post, you would surely make up your mind to visit this place at the earliest.
It all started as planned on the friday morning. I had to wake up a couple of folks to get ready as early as 5 am in the morning, Pulkit was one of them! He couldn’t belive he was getting up so early in the morning when the night darkeness was still intact. Most of my collegues got in to the Greenline bus from office premises by 6 am while few were picked up on the way towards mysore road. I was one among the five people who got into bus last as there were no more folks to get in after us. We were a group of 24 people in all. We managed to get out of city limits by 7:15am to get rid of the city traffic in the normal morning hours. Fun quotient kicked off as everyone got engrossed into Antakshari and dumb charades by forming groups among us. Stopped for breakfast at Kamat’s “Lokaruchi” adjacent to ‘Janapada Loka’. After getting energized the fun continued for rest of the journey. Though the distance is supposed to be 220 kms from bangalore to the resort, we missed the route near kabini water reservoir. Reached a place called ‘Brahma giri’, which is on the other side of the kabini river bank. We got to know about this when we called up the resort. So, we started our journey backwards to reach the right spot to get into the correct route. It was good to travel through the farming land on either side of the road. It was a feast to watch the greenery and natural colors all over.
A bit of advise for the readers… be careful to take right deviation after a place called ‘Hand Post’ where in you get to see a tiny board that directs you to take deviation from that point to reach Kabini River Lodge. From this place the Kabini Water Reservoir is about 10kms. If you don’t divert to the road towards right side, you will end up going towards Kabini dam and if you head further, you will reach ‘Orange County’ resort. One should take the right diversion road after Hand Post town towards Karapura, to reach Kabini Jungle River Lodge resort which is owned and operated by Government of Karnataka.
Again we faulted in taking the right route as there was a diversion due to road under some kind of maintenance. I was the culprit this time as I missed to read the right directions and got into a road that goes through the jungle which leads to Kerala. The road that we took was so bad, it was full of pot holes and it was certainly painful for the driver to go through those roads. He must have cursed me a lot, however rest of us enjoyed the forest and we were able to spot a couple of spotted deers and langoors on our way. We reached the resort around 2:40 pm against the actual plan of 12 pm. The manager of the premises was there to welcome us. He greeted us and I got busy in signing through the checkin registers and collecting the cottage allotment plant. Soon after that he took us through the resort map and planned programme for rest of the stay in resort. All of us were so hungry, we spent hardly any time to take a look at our cottage allotments as we headed towards Gol Ghal for lunch. I shall continue the rest of the story about the accomodation, forest safari and boating experience in my next article as I am feeling sleepy…
Last year around the same time, we visited Bheemeshwari fishing camp. You can go through the photos here. This year we are gearing up for a over night stay in the jungles around Kabini river. All the logistics have been planned already and can’t wait too long for this friday morning… Core team is certainly busy in remembering the sweet memories of previous visit and planning to have a better fun this time.
I appreciate your suggestions on must see/do things around Kabini jungle lodges. I shall write about my experience soon after coming back from that trip.
