Jun 24, 2008 03:25 PM
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I Blog at https://codecritic.in Feel free to read more reviews and photos of this Kabini river lodge there. 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.
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 mud due to rain 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 Ghar for lunch.
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 Nagarahol e 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 leopard 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 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 NagaraHol e 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.
