Kali Wilderness Camp...Dandeli trip...Final post

Well, I think I have been dragging this post for too long.. Meanwhile, we have been to one more trip and I so keen on writing the blog for my recent trip that I think I need to hurry up to finish this one..hehehe
Well, the evening program for the day was to visit Syntheri rock, which is a 300-feet tall granite located inside Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary. Kaneri river flows by the side and it is a spectacular site to watch. Travelled to the wildlife sanctuary for about an hour in a jeep and then walked for some distance to get to the place...Would like to mention a strange thing there... We were busy watching the rock and dint realize that the rock had huge bee-hives with thousands and thousands of bees in them and there were continuous bee droppings pouring on us from the sky ;)

The trip was very very tiring..It was hot and humid...

Now we were approaching the most exciting part of the trip... WHITE RIVER RAFTING...
Next day morning, we started our journey in jeep to river Kali, where rafting is done. There were in total three instructors and they divided us into three groups. Our raft had four people and an instructor..There is a session to make beginners comfortable with water and make them understand some ground rules of rafting. We were made to jump inside the river(of course, with life jackets and water sports gear) ... The first time I jumped in water, the fear of crocodiles almost killed me(remember, crocodiles seen during coracle ride ;)...
Well, I was told that crocodiles donot exist in this flowing water and they are mostly in the lower part of the river.. but who knows..anyways....once decided, need to accomplish the mission ...
The river has 6 rapids, which are mostly class 3 and 4 rapids. We were quite comfortable in first 4 rapids. In between, we reached comparatively slower part of the river, and our great instructor made us all jump into the river by turning the raft upside down... This was one life time experience.. Now comes the real adventure...
Last rapid was a class3 rapid and we crossed it somehow but our great adventurous instructor thought us to give us some more thrill and this is what happened after...
We all turned back to the rapid and tried doing surfing ...While trying to surf, me and my husband, who were sitting at the front of the raft, lost the grip and fell inside the rapid.. We were inside the water for close to 30-40 seconds.. Pranayaam helped us survive that day ...I will never forget those seconds in my life :)
After some time, we started floating over the water...the turbulent rapid had thrown us outside into the river and we were pulled back to the raft. Overall, the experience was pretty good and enjoyable.Pretty exciting!!!

Kali Wilderness Camp...Dandeli trip...continued...

We had reservation for two days at the wilderness camp. Reached Dandeli at around 1pm and we were greeted by the receptionist, who was ready with the plan for the coming two days, for us.
These are the activities at the camp. One can choose between the activities and also decide the time when they wish to join the group heading for a particular activity.
Here is a list of activities :
- Jungle Safari
- Syntheri rocks
- Kavala caves
- Coracle ride
- sykes Point
- and last but not the least...white river rafting!!!


Since, we were tired after train and road journey (Hubli to Dandeli), we opted to go for Safari that evening and not to Syntheri rocks, as we were told that one needs to go down 250 stairs or so to visit the rocks.

Had sumptuous lunch and after relaxing a bit, started the wildlife safari. Unlike most of the sanctuaries, this one has villagers residing inside the jungle. I guess this is because the tribal folks were always part of this jungle area much before it was declared a wildlife sanctuary. Then went back and read some more about these and came to know that one of the tribe's called "Siddi tribe", were part of the slave trade that went on between Portuguese ans Indian Princely states. The descendants of these slaves ran away and managed to stay alive in jungle. "Gowlis" are another tribal folks, who speak Marathi and believed to have their origin in Rajasthan.
We saw a model village outside the sanctuary area(few pics added above). The model shows few villagers, their shelters, cattle and a glimpse of their lifestyle.

The safari was in an open jeep and we were six people with a naturist and a driver. Everytime, he would spot a bird or an animal, he will make us all aware of its name, species, characteristics...At first, we spotted a Giant Squirrel, dark seal brown in color, with a tail that was almost 2 feet long. Generally dwells in upper part of the trees. After watching it jump from one tree branch to another,we moved ahead...Next we saw, a Brahminy Kite, a scavenger, thrives on dead fish,crabs and stays on trees near wet areas. Then a "Crocodile's Dentist" :) This bird(dunno the actual name but local people all it by this name), feeds on left overs that remain in a crocodile's teeth. One can easily spot crocodiles lazing on river banks, with their mouth wide open. Guess what, they wait for this bird to come and clean their teeth. Hence, the name...Found it quite interesting ... Also, saw quite a few bisons, peacocks, wild dogs...Strangely, deers are not seen in Dandeli forest, which are commonly found in other wild life sanctuaries in Karnataka like B.R.Hills, Bandipur, Kabini etc.

In the middle of the forest, is the Sykes Point, which is believed to be the most beautiful viewpoint in Karnataka. You can see, an amazingly lush green forest and river Kali flowing through it. Spent sometime at this viewpoint and then started our journey back to the resort. Reached back in almost an hour. It had grown dark by then. Relaxed with a cup of tea and played a game of carom. Well, the main activity in the resort, (atleast for me ) is fooood:)
After a yummy dinner, it was time to go off to bed. Quite a tiring day...


Next morning, we started with coracle ride. Coracle is a saucer shaped boat made of bamboo. This is the time to watch birds and be lucky enough to spot some crocodiles. We saw weaverbirds, kingfishers and quite a lot of egrets and of course some "Crocodile's dentists too ".
Our group was lucky enough to spot two crocodiles, one of them was quite chilled out and kept posing for all of us all the while. Here are some of the pics of this bold and beautiful creature ...

Kali Wilderness Camp...Dandeli trip..

Well to start with, I am back to this blog after quite a long time n I do apologize for not being able to update it regularly. Meanwhile, I have quite a few topics to post and hope I post good , informative stuff on my blog... We had been visiting quite a few places in and around Bangalore and I thought to share our experiences in my blog and let others be benefited from it. Well, to be clear it is not a review on the places where we had been and it is just an effort to pen down the memorabilia of the travel trips... So, lemme start with the latest one that we made over the last long weekend, to Kali Wilderness camp. Kali wilderness camp is located at Dandeli, which is about 481 kms from Bangalore. Nearest railway stations are Hubli(72 kms), Dharwad(55 kms), Alnavar(32kms). Since we were not very familiar with the Northern part of Karnataka and had heard that Dharwad and Alnavar are not big stations, so we booked our train tickets to Hubli, as Hubli is comparatively a bigger railway station and hence we thought that it would be easy to get taxi from there to reach Dandeli. Well, enough of logistics ...
Tired :)
Next blog will elaborate the activities in Kali wilderness camp, places to visit and a list of must-to-do things ...
Stay tuned ...
Enjoyeee