Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Dandeli, Karnataka

Trip to Dandeli.

It took us 25 mail chain to plan a trip to Dandeli, After long discussion whether it will be Innova or TT , we finalized that we will be going in TT. Dandeli is around 470km from Bangalore. Below is Dandeli forest taken during our visit.




If you are going on weekend , one has to book rooms in advance , We booked the rooms at Kulagi nature camp. Kulagi is around 12 km from Dandeli city. One can get Deluxe and normal rooms there. It becomes centre for the places to visit. Those were the preparations we made.

We started the journey on Thursday 1st July 2010 afternoon, We were 6 of us , Akshay, Akhila, Rahul,Deepti, Sanath and me , Nitin Shetty joined us later.
We saw awesome picturesque scene on our way to Davangere. As you can see here Windmills , larger than life trying to extract energy from natural source . Never knew India, though slowly, accepting new type of technologies.Was happy to see such an amazing scene in front of my eyes.




We went to Davangere , It is famous for Dosa, We had Davangere Benne Dosa .. slurrp , It was another experience , out of the world.



We were running out of time to reach our destination , It was around 2 at the night when we reached Kulagi Nature camp.
It became difficult to go to our spot as it was forest area and we had no mobile network , was midnight and there were none to guide us to our camp !! We managed to reach destination by asking few people. on check post. On our way to forest we saw group of deer in front of our vehicle. I had never seen so many deer in a group , Everything jumped and vanished in seconds. Mind blowing.

Kulagi nature camp stay was awesome , these were tents under solid roof.






We slept for few hours and morning I woke up early. As Photography enthusiast , early morning is the best time to take pictures.
As you can see in this pic , the dew drops . Ahh.. great feeling.



We gathered information from locals and came to know that we had quite a few places to visit.

1. White water rafting.
2. Back waters.
3. Syntheri rocks.
4. Safari.
5. Trekking to Nagjari falls.
6. Bird trial.

Friday we planned to go for Rafting , It was off and rainy season and we were doubtful of rafting, but to our luck we were able to do rafting and to our surprise water level was less. Reason was dam water was not released and rainfall was less. Best season to go for rafting is Jan to March it seems. Rafting is done in Kali river , You can see below the beauty of the river.





Picture depict more than words about our joy and fun. It has 9 rapids and costs 1500 rs per head as we went through some agent , If we go directly to river rafting it costs 200 to 300 rs less.






It took around 3 hrs for rafting , listening to command forward , backward , stop etc. and boy we wanted to continue to have fun but unfortunately it came to end. We were tired that day rowing the boat :D and came back to our nature camp and took rest for the day.



Next day morning , there was no rain and it was clear most of the day. We had breakfast , lunch and dinner at Nature camp itself, Food was pretty good and service too , there is a hall where everyone can gather, spacious place and can have food. Good facility.

We planned to cover Syntheri rocks and back waters and as planned we went to Syntheri rocks.It is around 26 to 28 km from Kulagi Nature camp.
There is nothing impressive about Syntheri rocks but worth seeing once, There are different types of rocks on display as you climb down the steps and at the bottom, one can see huge monolithic rock which is called Syntheri rocks.




After we finished seeing Syntheri rocks , we went for back waters , We had quite a good photo session there , jumping all around :)
Though nothing much to do there , but its quite a good place to spend time with friends.
We came back to our camp , played few games like blindfold , mafia etc. Was fun playing these games after so many years :)







Next day morning we went for Safari in Jeep , We have to book a day earlier and chances of sighting animals is more in the early morning , Since it was rainy season we could see only Bison , peacock and few other birds. But it was thrilling to take the picture of Bison. There is a peak point in the forest from where we can see entire forest, but unfortunately it was covered with mist and we couldn't see much from peak point. But I had very good opportunity to take pictures :) (made my day :D)


After Safari we head towards museum , which was nearby nature camp . There one can see lot of dead bugs , insects , recorded sound of animals . From there we came to know that there is something called Nagjari falls and we have to go trekking there. Being trekking enthusiast, we couldn't resist it , but rule is that we have to inform people there a day earlier so that they can arrange for guides in early morning.
We requested and one guy called "Biru " agreed to take us for a trek and falls. We were warned that there will be lot of leeches and as promised there were lot of them :D.




Trekking was awesome , in mid of jungle , with sounds of frog and birds.



As soon as you go near the falls one can hear the sound of flowing waters and you suddenly realize that we have to descend down steeply , With the support of some trees and plants and jumping few streams of water , we reached the top of water falls. We dint have time to climb down the falls so we decided to play in water on the top .



Suddenly it started raining. In front of us, was amazing forest and in the back , water streams and on the top rainfall, We couldn't do anything other than thanking God in Rahul's trademark fashion.



Every fun has to come to an end , we climbed back to the starting point and came back to our camp. Because of time shortage we couldn't cover the bird trial.(which is kept for next time :) )

Finally barring all difficulties we enjoyed being on the lap of mother nature for 4 days and enjoyed the company of friends and enjoyed every bit of time.
Hoping for such a trip every now and then to refresh my mind. :D



Thanks for reading the post, Hope it helps you in your next trip to Dandeli.

If you are interested in seeing some more pictures , can visit my flickr url:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45220395@N04/