The Idyllic Holiday Trip...

I had an unmatched combination of holiday at a hill-station and also had an opportunity for exploring the wildlife, a few days back with my friends. This month 4^th morning at 9 we reached Mysore & we took morning shelter at my friend Ravi sir house; we started our journey a little late in a hired taxi.

Our journey initially was not much attractive but later we felt pretty good as per our plan late noon we reached MM hills &occupied  the already reserved rooms unloaded our luggage had food & we turned to see Hogenkal waterfalls. By 4.30 evening we reached Hogenkal & hired 2 boats to take us to the waterfalls. After a 30 minute journey in the boat reached another side of the river & had stunning view of the huge milky waterfalls Because of heavy volume in falls & lack of time we couldn’t reach the bottom of the waterfalls.

After having a scenic sunset we returned back to MM Hills & Night temple was very rush but easily we had grace of Goddess Mahadeswara with a help of some influence.

 

Next day we reached BR hills at 11 compare to MM hills this temple was little neat & scenic. Here Lord Ranganatha is situated on the highest peak (1700meters) of the hill range, on the 'white cliff' which gives the hill its name. The local form of the deity is called Biligiriranga and is depicted in a unique standing position. The Annual Car festival of the deity held during “Vaishakha “in the month of April, is famous in the region and attracts thousands of pilgrims from far and wide.

 

The local tribes present a large pair of slipper measuring 1 foot and 9 inches, made up of skin, to the Ranganathaswamy once in two years. The temple premise is also famous for its great valley view.

 

Next we reached K G Gudi, we decided to have Wild Safari. We booked one forest Jeep & by 4.30 we entered forest. Our expectation as not much initial While the numbers of species were small, we get incredibly (and safely) close to the animals.

The Jeep tour of the park was cutesy, but we were fortunate to get within an arms length of bison and other mammals. The portions of the park had live animal exhibits that were surprisingly intimate with the animals and yet humane. We enjoyed the park! It was clean and well kept.

 

The staffs were happy and friendly. We enjoyed looking at the animals in their native habitat it’s an hour tour through the free-roaming area of the park on board a motorized Jeep driven by one of the park guides who points out the different animals as we pass. See buffalo, deer, goats and geese up close and personal. For intrepid explorers, there are many trails from this place.

Finally we returned back from a wonderful unhurried scenic trip through some of the most spectacular places in Western Ghat.

Kotagiri

After lot of searching browsing through net we finally zeroed on a place Kotagiri which is a very old hill station known from the time of British but unknown to many a supposedly quiet place, a lot of planning went into this trek we were looking forward for this monsoon trek since it was quiet some time we had gone out during rains.We started from Bangalore we had to reach Kotagiri from Ooty though we had booked the tickets we were in for a big surprise as to our boarding place was not from majestic but some other place getting to know about this in the last minute we ran pillar to post trying to catch the bus at the next stop finally we made it after lot of running around finally seated we started our journey( little did we know that more surprises were in store). After crossing Madhumalai forest 50km before Ooty our bus had stopped people were fast asleep to even realize we were in middle of nowhere and bus had a breakdown finally waking up to a cold morning and a slight drizzle all of us had to wait for an hour to get another bus, finally we reached Ooty around 9.00 from there we got a bus to Kotagiri another 40km from Ooty old rickety bus.

Rain smell of eucalyptus was very pleasant though after a very tiring bus journey ,green mountains ,tea plantations never ending small streams wild flowers was enough to make anybody a poet, reaching Kotagiri a small place with a church a school and some few shops with a few tea factories Kotagiri was a sleepy town people were in their own time.

Having bread for breakfast with fresh tea which Kotagiri is famous for we looked around the place by noon we planned to see the Catherine fall with non stop rain and windy climate rows and rows of Nilgiri mountain completely covered in mist was breathtaking, though the fall was a little disappointing with very little water the place around was simply superb we felt we were riding on the clouds, more and more of mountains and mist and greenery we filled our heart's content monsoon trek was not that bad nature was at it's best giving her complete self Nillgiri hills was paradise,

making our trip back we were still in those mountains completely lost didn't want to face the city life again forcing ourselves planning our next trip gave us little comfort , on the way back through Madhumalai forest and Bandipur park we were treated to herd of many wild elephants( looked like they too had planned Sunday outing with family many baby elephants with their mothers were happily posing for photos) enjoying themselves in the rain got to see few wild boars and many spotted deer’s,

finally we reached Bangalore at 8.00 pm ,though lot of adventure it was a superb monsoon trek hope to make some more before the rain ends..