I had been to Kochi for a week during 1st week of Oct. Came back through a scenic route: Ernakulam-Thrissur-Shoranur-Ottapalam-Nilambur-Gudalur-Gundlupet-Chamranagar-Bangalore. The reason why I chose this route was I wanted to drop at a relative's place in Ottapalam. We broke the journey in Nilambur where we stayed in KTDC Nilambur overnight. Pretty decent hotel.
This route is around 490 km as per my odo, (but Google maps shows 509 km) whereas the normal route through Kovai-Salem is around 550 km. Wanted to try this one as this was the unexplored one in my list. Very scenic and good route, but might take the same time or more as the alternate route since the roads are not so wide (2 lane throughout) and has some rough patches here and there. The beauty of this route is that after about 25 km Nilambur, there is forest section, and then it is forest for the next 3 hours, which passes through Mudumalai and Bandipur wildlife sanctuaries in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka respectively.
There are very high possibilities of wildlife sightings, especially during dawn and dusk. We passed through this stretch around 6.30 am to 7.30 am which was apt for sightings. We saw deer and elephants - one lone tusker even charged on us. This guy seemed to be an Ottayan (lone tusker) , was on the roadside facing the opposite direction and hence could not spot us fast. It was just when we passed him he saw us and came charging a few meters. By then we had gone sufficiently ahead.
Wished I had a good camera and a brave navigator to capture this. Dad was finding it difficult to capture this with his mobile camera and he was scared too :)
In fact, if you search Google for routes between Kochi and Bangalore, three routes show up. One is through Kovai-Salem (around 540 km), second through NH 209 passing through Satyamangalam, Chamrajnagar, and Kollegal and third one is the route which I took this time.
I will be off to Kannur may be next week. Will post the updates after that on that route.
Love you.
Gopu
This route is around 490 km as per my odo, (but Google maps shows 509 km) whereas the normal route through Kovai-Salem is around 550 km. Wanted to try this one as this was the unexplored one in my list. Very scenic and good route, but might take the same time or more as the alternate route since the roads are not so wide (2 lane throughout) and has some rough patches here and there. The beauty of this route is that after about 25 km Nilambur, there is forest section, and then it is forest for the next 3 hours, which passes through Mudumalai and Bandipur wildlife sanctuaries in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka respectively.
There are very high possibilities of wildlife sightings, especially during dawn and dusk. We passed through this stretch around 6.30 am to 7.30 am which was apt for sightings. We saw deer and elephants - one lone tusker even charged on us. This guy seemed to be an Ottayan (lone tusker) , was on the roadside facing the opposite direction and hence could not spot us fast. It was just when we passed him he saw us and came charging a few meters. By then we had gone sufficiently ahead.
Wished I had a good camera and a brave navigator to capture this. Dad was finding it difficult to capture this with his mobile camera and he was scared too :)
In fact, if you search Google for routes between Kochi and Bangalore, three routes show up. One is through Kovai-Salem (around 540 km), second through NH 209 passing through Satyamangalam, Chamrajnagar, and Kollegal and third one is the route which I took this time.
I will be off to Kannur may be next week. Will post the updates after that on that route.
Love you.
Gopu
