- What – Famous Jungle lodge in Karanataka, Best place for wildlife photography
- When – Visited 2008.
- Travel –
- 225 Km from Bangalore via Mysore -> HD Kote
- Highlights –
- Most beautiful property of Jungle lodges in Karanataka. Ambience and food is extraordinary.
- Jungle safari, boat safari – it is almost guarantee to see wild animals like deer, elephant in natual habitat up-close. Very famous for leopard easy siting as well.
- Kabini backwaters makes this place very unique.
- A perfect place for someone looking forward to learn wildlife photography due to easy siting of animals around the year.
- Lowlights
- Cost – Very costly place. I dont know any other tourist place in India which is costlier than Kabini !! However worth every penny if you are visiting first time. Second time decide based on your hobby and interest.
- Suitable Time Period
- One can visit any time during the year. Monsoon offers lush green jungle, Winters offers pleasant weather and stay, summer makes animal siting extremely easy.
- Arrangements – Self.
- STAR Rating – 5/5 – Must visit at least once if you are in Bangalore. This is worth to travel for outside Karanataka tourist too. – Kabini is very unique experience, very different than any other Jungle safaris one would have done elsewhere.
- Resort Link – https://www.junglelodges.com/resort/kabini-river-lodge/ . There are other private resorts as well, however I find JLR is best overall.
Kabini Jungle Lodge Resort – 2008
Planning:
Its always the case, your best trips would be the one which are planned without giving much thought and just following the instinct. Kabini is one such memorable visit. It was start of monsoon season, and we were desperateto go out somewhere. Had heard of good repo about jungle lodges, and we zeroed on best of them, Kabini. Also since this resort is on river side, we knew, even if it rains heavily, trip wont be a complete waste.
After confirming reservation availability of Kabini, we check out if any of our friends are willing to join us, but everyone was busy with some or the other thing. Then came a wacky thought of taking this opportunity and going on bike.
With monsoon just setting in, we knew we wont get any better chance than this to go for a really long bike ride. But to make it possible, I had to come over not only my persisting shoulder pain, but I had to prepare my 10 year old rusting bike for long ride. Since I was hardly using my bike since last year,bike was in very bad shape. I rushed my bike to service station and spend 1000 bucks to replace all aged parts. Smooth bike sound after servicing gave me confidence, this bike is ready to roll, and so were we 🙂
Route
Kabini jungle lodge is 225 Km from Bangalore.To reach Kabini one has to go via Mysore.The site from where we had got the route map mentions place called Anathanstray after Mysore. But nobody knows this place, and we had little trouble finding direction from Mysore. Instead we should ask for HD Kote from Mysore.As you reach Mysore ring road junction from Bangalore take Right turn on outer ring road, and skip mysore city. Keep following sign boards of HD Kote. To help there are few sign boards by Orange County also.
Route map is : Bangalore – Ramnagar – Mandya- Srirangapatna – Mysorering road – Hampapura – Handpost – HD Kote Junction – Antharasanthe – Karapura- Kabini.
Another confusing turn is after HD Kote. There is one Y junction after 4-5Km HD Kote junction, where one road leads to Kabini/Orange county and other points to Karapura/Jungle Lodge Resort / and Cicada resort. Here one can get confused due to Kabini sign board. We need to keep going towards Karapura.
Road Condition:
We cannot ask better road than this. 🙂 Till the Rajiv Gandhi National park (Nagarhole) check post road is extremely good. Towards the end there is small patch of 12-15 Km bad road. Actually when we visited Kabini there was construction work going on. So there is 13 Km diversion just before jungle check post. Also since it was a diversion there are hardly any sign boards of JLR. This was the most confusing part of journey. We were just hoping we have taken the right route and we kept going. On the way, couple of times we got confirmation from local people about Karapur. But when one doesn’t know local language, one cant be sure of anything :).
We reached JLR after close to Seven hours of journey at around 1.30 PM,little late from the checking time of 12 noon.
Resort:
Well what to say about JLR, as you enter their campus, all your fatigue will go away. JLR campus is lush green and well maintained. Other than regular safaris, one can go for a walk besides rives, relax on hammock, do bird photography, but there is just not enough time. For a one day package schedule is really tight, so better you report on time at 12 noon. There is also two night three day package available, but it would cost double the normal rate.
Jungle Safari:
Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary is one of the most popular wildlife sanctuaries in south India. Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary houses a number of endangered and rare species of animals. Some of the animals found here are elephants, leopard, panther, sambhar, spotted deer, cheetal, panther and 250 species of birds. The Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary is considered as one of the best bird sanctuaries in India.
The water body inside the forest is unique to the Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary.The dam across the river near Beechanahalli adds beauty to the wildlife reserve.
We spotted sambhar, spotted deer, cheetal, and elephant herds. We had no luck but other group spotted panther too. However most fascinating for me was to see tusker and elephant herds in their natural habitat from really close distance
Flora and Fauna at Kabini
Best Time to Visit
The best time to visit the Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary is October to May.During summer, animals in large numbers gather near the lake. But if you just want to enjoy riverside and lush green forest any time is better time, and every season has its own attractions.