Planning:

Its always the case, your best trips would be the one which areplanned without giving much thought and just following the instinct. Kabini isone 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 zeroedon best of them, Kabini. Also since this resort is on river side, we knew, evenif it rains heavily, trip wont be a complete waste.

After confirming reservation availability of Kabini, we check out if any ofour friends are willing to join us, but everyone was busy with some or otherthing. Then came a wacky thought of taking this opportunity and going on mybike.

With monsoon just setting in, we knew we wont get any better chance thanthis to go for a really long bike ride. But to make it possible, I had to comeover not only my persisting shoulder pain, but I had to prepare my 10 year oldrusting 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 1000bucks to replace all aged parts. Smooth bike sound after servicing gave mecomplete 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 Anathanstrayafter Mysore.But nobody knows this place, and we had little trouble finding direction from Mysore. Instead we shouldask 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. Keepfollowing sign boards of HD Kote. To help there are few sign boards by Orange Countyalso.

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 otherpoints to Karapura/Jungle Lodge Resort / and Cicada resort. Here one can getconfused 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 of12-15 Km bad road. Actually when we visited Kabini there was construction workgoing on. So there is 13 Km diversion just before jungle check post. Also sinceit was a diversion there are hardly any sign boards of JLR.  This was amost confusing part of journey. We were just hoping we have taken the rightroute and we kept going. On the way, couple of times we got confirmation fromlocal people about Karapur. But when one doesn’t know local language, we cantbe 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 willgo away. JLR campus is lush green and well maintained. Other than regularsafaris, one can go for a walk besides rives, relax on hammock, do birdphotography, but there is just not enough time. For a one day package scheduleis really tight, so better you report on time at 12 noon. There is also twonight 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 insouth India.Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary houses a number of endangered and rare species ofanimals. Some of the animals found here are elephants, leopard, panther,sambhar, spotted deer, cheetal, panther and 250 species of birds. The KabiniWildlife 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 noluck but other group spotted panther too. However most fascinating for me wasto see tusker and elephant herds in their natural habitat from really closedistance

Flora and Fauna at Kabini

More Photographs : Click here 

 BestTime to Visit

Off course 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 forrest any time is better time, and every season has its own attractions.