Places: Kokkare Belluru Bird Sanctuary, Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary, Ballmuri Falls, Edmuri Falls.
Day of travel: Started Early in the morning (5:30 am) and returned home at 8pm. Basically a good one day trip.
Total Distance: 300KM
Route:
Kokkare Belluru: From Bannerghatta road, joined the nice road and then joined the Mysore road. Drive towards Mysore on state highway. After Channapatna continue the drive towards Maddur on state highway only. Just 2 KM before Maddur a village Rudrakshipura comes. There you need to take left to travel 12KM on Village roads to reach Kokkare Belluru. Just 2-3 KM before Maddur watch for sigh board indicating the cross to this place.
Rangnathittu: From Kokkare belluru, come back in the same road and join back to state highway and drive towards Maddur. After Maddur, drive till exit of SriRangaPatna. As soon as you see a exit board of Sri Ranga Patna you will get a circle where state highway continues towards mysore and another road takes right U turn towards KRS. Take that U turn and with in 2-3 KM you will find the big arch for Ranganathittu on your right.
Balmuri and Edmuri falls: Come back to same Ranganthittu arch and continue in the road towards KRS. With in 12 KM you will find Balmuri Falls. Ask on the way if you get stuck somewhere. Balmuri and Edmuri falls are co-located nearby.
SriRangaPatna Temple: Now you need to come back in same way back from Balmuri Falls to SriRangapatna to visit final destination, Ranganatha temple.
From SriRanganaPatna come back to Bangalore on the same state highway...
Food Availability:
There are many good hotels like Kamath, Adigas, KFC, McD, Anandh Bhavan etc etc between Channapatna to Maddur. So try to fill your tummies before you leave Maddur. After Maddur you will not good food on the way. At Ranganathittu there is a small hotel but food was ok. There are lots of small hotels in Ballmuri falls but they are all pathetic and unhigene. Avoid that street food as you may have to take bed for next full week.
Make sure you eat lunch in Kamath on highway or if you can wait till 3pm, you will get good hotels after Maddur on the way to Bangalore.
Best Best thing is to pack food at home itself....
Story Begins....
There were hundreds of party options in Bangalore for celebrating new year 2012. After thinking a lot, finally we planned to skip the city and get out of city to start the new year in a fresh way, with a fresh breeze, zero polluted air, Out of crowd, out of noise, out of tensions, which is a long drive towards Mysore.
Kokkare Belluru:
Started our journey early in the morning 5am. My Wife woke up 4am itself prepared the breakfast also. With no stop drive, reached our first place "Kokkare Belluru Bird Sanctuary" at sharp 7:30am. As soon as we entered this small village by name "Kokkare Belluru" We didn't know what to see. We asked few local fellows and came to know places where we can see the birds. In Kannanda Kokkare mean “stork” or “Pelican” birds. Belluru is Village name. From Start of Jan these birds migrates to this place from far distances and goes away at the end of March. Birds here more like a family for these villagers and they treat them with all support. Many water bodies, lush green and climate is what attracts these birds during this season. You can see hundreds of birds during peak season. Our bad that we went very early in the season and saw only few tens of birds. But they were really great to see.
Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary
After watching them for some time, Journey started back at 8am. Hit the highway and hitting 120 speed we reached next place "Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary" at sharp 9:30am. There are no hotels open at that early time and packing the food was a great idea. Eat our breakfast in the Sanctuary itself and rested for some time to enjoy the cool breeze. Our souls were so fresh that we can feel it. Called all friends and wished a great new year.Entry fee was 50 per head, Parking for car is 30/- and boat ride is 100/-.
After some time, started exploring the Sanctuary. Main thing to do is, take a Coracle ride. They take you to a big round in lake where you can see all birds. Birds here are very seasonal. You can see some birds in some seasons, so any time is a good time to visit this place. But June-Nov is the best time to visit as we can see many varieties of birds during that time. As we were very early to this place, it was very quite and great to enjoy the nature.
It is interesting to see that the birds from all over the world come here for breeding. Can see many crocodiles all the time.
Balmuri Falls
Sun was slowly warming up the air and started getting bit hot. So its the time for swim. At sharp 11am started our journey to our main destination, "Balmuri Falls". Ballmuri and EdMuri are co-located and Ballmuri is the best one to visit and you can skip the other one. Road is pathatic for EmMuri and very narrow rode for 4 wheelers.
Actually its not a falls. Its a small Checkdam constructed for storing water to some extent and leaving rest of the kaveri water. When the water flows from above that small dam it creates a small fall. But its a great place to visit. Small fall of water for about 200 meters width is a great view. This place gives a unique way to enjoy, that is waking on dam. While walking on dam, water rushes from our feet and for sure you have a great fun.
Almost 1 hour spent on this dam enjoying the chilled water under hot sun.
Few important notes are, no proper place for women to change dress. Lots of people from near by places come for swimming and hence you have to reach this place before 12 to enjoy with less crowd. Near to 1pm, you will not get proper place to stand also. So plan to reach soon and leave soon also.
After this, we went to EdMuri falls just 1 KM from there. Road was pathetic. It was very hard time to take reverse also at the end of the road to come back.
SrirangaPatna
Journey started back to Bangalore. As it was new year day, we wanted to cover a temple also. We to SrirangaPatna on the way back to Bangalore. There is a very famous Ranganatha Swamy temple. Visited the temple and took Gods blessings also to start this year :)
It was a nice fun trip and a great way to start new year.
Good Bye and catch you with next trip.... :)
