New Year 2014 ride...

The bond between me and Cauvery especially for the new year's eve is getting strengthened year by year. For the fourth year in a row, got a chance to ride to a spot where the river Cauvery flows through. Though this was my third time visiting this place, it was special, as this was the first time I went with my DSLR cam. This place is always a good to go for all photography enthusiasts around Bangalore. Yes, its none other the Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary which hosts a lot of birds with their nests settled here and a few migratory birds that visit every year. This sanctuary is located at about 135 KM from Bangalore near Srirangapatna. Mysore is just about 19 KM from the sanctuary. 

Me and a few of my friends who are not being inclined towards parties, wanted to spend the new year's day somewhere outside Bangalore and wanted to welcome New Year with a good ride that's not too far to complete in a single day. Then, we decided to hit Ranganthittu. This ride was a different and a first time experience of this kind, as I was going along with 3 families ;-) (Yes you read it right, 3 families). So, you could easily imagine about the time taken for planning and the difficulties in following through the plans :P. We planned to start about 7:30 AM from Bangalore, so that we could reach before noon and would be able to spend a good amount of time in the sanctuary. As usual, everybody I called up told that they were ready by 7:00 AM but we were able to start by 8:30 AM only from our house. I still don't understand from where that extra one and half hour came in :P 

Me and my roomie started in bike and the 3 families managed to adjust within the Maruthi Swift. (It should have a been a good promo for swift to accommodate so many people :-)), Initial plan was to meet at the NICE road entrance (in Banneghatta road) to Mysore road. But after a lot of back and forth calls, we somehow managed to meet each others after Bidadi (a place that's about 30KM from Bangalore city). We continued to ride till Maddur, stopped there by about 11:30 AM and had brunch break for about an hour at Vasudev Adigas. Next stop was the destination which we reached by about 1:30 PM.

This was a good season for the sanctuary, we could spot a lot of birds like pelican, painted stork, spoon bill, serpent eagle, open bill stork and a few more (the names of which I forgot). Most noticeably, I could see a potential increase in the number of Marsh Crocodiles in the lake present inside the sanctuary. The main activity in the sanctuary was the boating (manually rowed by the sanctuary personnel) that went around the lake and the islands present inside the lake where various birds have nested. It was a thrilling and a little scary experience to get so close to the crocodiles lying over the small rocks in middle of the lake. It was worth a trip for the ride and also for the photos we managed to take. We spent about 4 hours in the sanctuary, and started back by about 5:00 PM.

It was a completely trafficky ride back to Bangalore till Channapatna as most of the Bangaloreans were returning back to the city after their new year celebrations. We again stopped at Adigas in Maddur for a supper break and took some time to do a chit-chat to refresh ourselves for the next leg of ride. By the time we reached back home, it was 10:30 PM. Though the time taken for the trip was a lot more than anticipated, overall it was a fulfilling trip filled with a sense of satisfaction about the ride and the photographs taken there. 

Marsh Crocodile

Open bill Stork

The Crew :-)

Trip details in a nutshell

Number of days : 1

Vehicles :CBZX, Maruthi Swift,

Route : Bangalore -> Bidadi -> Ramnagara -> Channapatna -> Maddur -> Mandya -> Srirangapatna          ->Ranganthittu ; and backtracked the same route. Completely stretched over the SH-17. Took a      deviation after crossing Srirangapatna to reach the sanctuary which was like ~ 5 KM from SH 17

Distance covered : 313 KM