The Coorg Weekend Adventure

Kalyani Candade

The Coorg Weekend Adventure will go down in the annals of Wildertrailing history as the trip on which we saw a TIGER. It had been a desperate afternoon of trying to wangle seats on the van ride in Nagarhole, with a little question deep down; was it really worth all the stress and the wait? What, after all, could one see on a van ride with 29 other people, with noisy kids to boot?

Apologies. It was the noisy kid who spotted the regal beast lying sprawled in the grass not more than twenty feet from the road. “Tiger” we heard her yell. In disbelief we looked, to find him (or her?) looking steadily at us with just a mild twitch of the tail once in a while to show that he was for real, and not a figment of the imagination. After all the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ died down, and everybody had clicked to their hearts content, he decided we shouldn’t be treated to too much of a good thing, and sauntered away.

Earlier, we had watched the other lord of the jungle, the elephant, majestically shoo away a sambar from a favourite haunt. The other denizens didn’t disappoint either; gaur, barking deer, wild boar, and of course, chital and peacock. It was with a feeling of fullness that we finally dismounted from the van, all skepticism banished.

The other king of the Indian jungles. This magnificient beast was caught in the act of letting a hapless Sambhar know who was boss.

It was first time Wildertrailing for many. Already, the tiger sighting had made the trip.

But there was more to come. The estate we had chosen for our homestay was ideally located to cover Nagarhole, Wyanad and Brahmagiri. Wyanad was closed, so we drove along the highway that runs through the jungle. Wyanad was different and beautiful, and the possibility of spotting wildlife itself gave us an adrenalin high. We saw a lone elephant, and presumably passed a tiger kill.

The morning was for trekking. We headed out to Iruppu Falls, and onward to the strangely beautiful Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary, straddling shola forest and grassland. The initial climb was steep, but somewhere, reaching the destination was not the goal. We took our time, drank in the forest, waited for stragglers. Spoor told stories of elephant visits up the slope; our guide explained that they raided the crops in the estates nearby and came here to hide! Also, perhaps, of marten, as our new friend and ardent tracker suggested. He of course, would have loved to stay back and get his nose in the dirt, as he put it – but that’s for another time.

We climbed till we reached the end of the tree-line, and hit the grassland. This was the essence of Brahmagiri – the golden grass, the rolling valleys, the emerald green and russet gold… We drank in the view, and paused.

We didn’t have the whole day to make it to the top, so we turned back. We would come back someday, get to know these mountains more intimately. This was an introduction.

Back to the estate for a quick lunch topped by chilled, golden cubes of fresh papaya, a last round of freshly ground robusta coffee, group photos with our host and hostess, and it was time to leave for Mysore.

Coorg offers some very pretty trekking routes. And the picture-postcard locations that amateur photographers love so much.

Enroute, we halted at the Elephant Camp at Murkal where we met Abhimanyu, a bull elephant in masth. Though his front legs were chained together to prevent him from running amock, Abhimanyu seemed to us an extremely polite gentleman, with only one thought in his head at the moment – food!

In the van, the banter turned on our youngest member, who held her own more than ably, giving as good as she got. Soon, most slid down into their seats, and settled down for a quiet nap. Except our amazing techie, who got to work on his snazzy laptop, and soon had a mailing list ready – complete with profile pictures!

Wildertrails has truly come a long way…

For more pictures of the Coorg Weekend Adventure, visit our facebook group.