This was the first time when I travelled to Kgudi ,BRHills. It has been nearly 3 or more years since then..but the memories are still as fresh as it was just a yesterday !
Trip to BR hills.
From child hood I have always been fascinated by forest and nature. Even today I like to explore more about nature and the more I explore the more I’m surprised ..
There was always something special going into the forest – especially in the rains.. The green is fresh and bright which soothes mind and heart immensely. The songs of birds ,trees and jungle friends gelled with scent of trees is something which is hard to describe. And when the forest is on a range of hills like BR Hills makes it a real paradise.
I’ve been blessed to have visited to BR hills couple of times; staying at JLR camp in Kgudi is a life time experience. The camp is situated in heart of WLS It has tents and log huts with all basic facilities and wonderful cuisine to enrich your taste buds.
We started early from Bangalore, after having our delicious breakfast of idlis and dosas at Kamath we reached the camp around 11:30 am. As we reached there the beautiful lush green forest welcomed us, we ware thrilled to see the greenery and birds etc.
After we checked into tinted tents,which ware neat and tidy with clean bedspread. We just thought of exploring the area, as the westernghats are one of the biodiversity hotspots in India .We can see lots of verities of ferns and other plants ,lots of birds which are endemic to these ghats. Its a treat for nature lovers and those who like to learn more about incredible flora and fauna which exists here exists no where in the world.
After having our lunch we started with the jeep safari into the jungle. The naturalist and the jeep drivers are very well trained and knows jungle sounds that we can’t even notice. we saw lots and lots of spotted deers , barking deers and sambhar deer when suddenly our jeep driver informed us to be still and quiet .as elephant was near by….by the time we reacted the big huge fellow came towards us charging. We had hearts in our mouth ..and to our surprise the jeep driver stopped the jeep immediately and let elephant pass ..as we started again the elephant again charged stopping just few feet from our jeep., by repeating the process the jeep driver gave full respect to the animal and let him go completely. Then further we saw lots of gaurs(Indian bisons) , no. of birds and amphibians etc.
The drive through jungle was wonderful, imagine the shiver with cold in mid of June and the chill breeze which was carrying jungle scent was accompanying us through undulating forest.
Coming back to camp we had much needed tea and pakoras and then nice camp fire with good heavy dinner. We spent lot of time watching the sky full of stars as the cloud cover disappeared and listing to jungle sounds.
Early morning again we went to jungle and saw a elephant family ,sloth bear, lots of deers ,wild bores ,lion tailed macaques, Nilgiris langur ,monkeys and lots of other animals.
These resorts have very restricted no. of guests and range of forest ,so that the wildlife on a whole is not disturbed and also a powerful medium to spread a message of conservation and being a nature lover there cannot be any more treat to be in jungle like BR Hills with so much to see and explore that whole life is not enough.
Though we did not see a tiger or a leopard it was an extremely interesting and satisfying trip. Needless to say looking forward to go there again
Lastly from lines of “Willam Wordsworth” “I gazed –and gazed – but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought ..”----------
Shivani
