Categories
Photography

Trip to Kalhatti Falls, Kemmangundi, Hebbe Falls and Mullayanagiri – Chikmagalur

It was the 5th week since the trip marathon began – the first one was when I was on a vacation – when I went around places in Dakshina Kannada – covering Pethri, and a few places around, and Someshwar.

Then it was a couple of trips to Coorg, the first one being a trip to Mandalpatti, Madikeri, Dubare and Bylakuppe followed by another trip to Coorg covering Dubare, Chelavara falls, Iruppu falls and Nagarhole National Park.


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This was the 4th trip in 5 consecutive weekends and the planning seemed straightforward. By this time, our routine of finding places, mapping them out and deciding the route had become fairly standardized. We went on a Qualis this time since there were more people than what an Indica could carry.

We planned to leave early in the morning by 2am from Bangalore – but the driver who seemed to have just returned from some other trip overslept and we left late. It was already 4am by the time we crossed Nelamangala and we were silently cursing the driver for the delay.

Categories
Photography

Trip to Chelavara Falls, Igguthappa Temple, Iruppu Falls and Nagarhole National Park

This is a continuation of an earlier post: Trip to Dubare, Pollibetta, Talakaveri and Bhagamandala.

The next day we started at around 8:30am after a good sleep for more than 10 hours.

We had already booked the jeep the previous day to go to 3 places: Igguthappa Temple, Nalknad Palace and Chelavara Falls. The jeep guy appeared right on time and we had a quick breakfast and were on our way.

The previous night we had taken the same route but we didn’t know what we had missed. The landscape was really amazing – the hills were green and the weather was awesome.

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Categories
Photography

Trip to Chitradurga, Chandravalli – Ankali Caves and Holalkere

Our first trip in 2010 was to Chitradurga. Chitradurga is about 200km from Bangalore and is quite hot in the summers so this is the best time to visit if you intend to.

We had done the required preparations for the trip – mapping out all the places that we intended to visit and the distances to each of them and the things that we had to carry.

We left Bangalore at 5am in the morning. Our plan was to reach Chitradurga by noon with a visit to Vanivilas Sagar Dam on the way. The road to Chitradurga is very good; it is part of the North South corridor. The driver of our car felt like we had paid the price (toll) to rip on the roads and he was treated to a wonderful road where he was easily reaching 120-150 kmph (the maximum speed of an Indica).

We visited Vanivilas Sagar Dam around 10:15. Vanivilas Sagar Dam, aka Mari Kanive, is the oldest dam in the state. I had been to the dam just a couple of months back and so I knew that there is a way to the top.



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Categories
Photography

Trip to Gopalaswamy betta and BR hills

We went to Himavad Gopalaswamy betta and B. R. hills last weekend. The main intention of the trip was photography.

We left Bangalore on Friday night and reached Mysore early morning. There were some adhoc changes to our plan; we were supposed to go to Mysore by train, but later realized that a car is going to cost the same and so hired a car in the last minute.

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Categories
Photography

Trips to Ranganathittu, Varthur lake and Sankey Tank

Ever since I realized the limitations of my Canon PowerShot A630, I started hunting for a new camera.

My initial plan was to go for a Canon Powershot SX10IS; the 20x optical zoom for a camera worth 17k (US price) was too hard to believe. But I got a good deal for a second hand Canon Digital Rebel XTi (EOS 400D). I had no second thoughts when I got a Sigma 70-300mm Macro Telephoto Zoom Lens and a Velbon tripod along with the camera which came with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens.

In order to test the camera before buying, I planned a trip to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. Vinay, the guy who sold me the camera asked us to go early in the morning. So we left at around 4am from Bangalore and reached Ranganathittu around 7am.

Categories
My Updates Photography

A very productive weekend

With 5 movies and a solo trip on my bike around Bangalore on the ring road, clearly, this is one of the most productive weekends ever! 🙂

Movies I watched:

  • Cast Away
  • Forrest Gump
  • Road to Perdition
  • Insomnia
  • Whole Nine Yards


And now about the trip:
I was bored. That is when this thought came to me that I could go round the city on the ring-road. I had planned a similar trip around the Mysore Ring road during Engineering, however the road was not yet complete.

So I started off at 3:25 pm from Indiranagar. I reached the Marathalli junction at around 3:45. My plan was to return to this exact same location and then return home.

Just to give you an idea of the route I took, here are some places I came across during my trip:

Marathalli, Sarjapur road, BTM ring road, Bannerghatta road, Deve Gowda petrol bunk, Kathriguppe, Pantar Palya, Bangalore University, RVCE, Kengeri, Papareddy Palya, Peenya, Tata tea, BEL circle, Hebbal fly-over, Devanahalli (had lost my way), back to Hebbal fly-over, Banasvadi junction, back to Marathalli.

I lost my way thrice during the trip. On one occasion I was on my way to Hyderabad. Little did I realize that I had taken the wrong way from Hebbal. It was only after I reached Devanahalli a good 25 km from Hebbal fly-over that I realized I had hopelessly lost my way!

After having travelled for about 150 km, for about 4 hours 15 minutes, I returned home safe and tired. Wow, that was a memorable journey!