Woke up early on the third day at the Wild Valley Farm and from yesterday’s experience, I knew Snoopy would be around in one of the tents. What better companion than Snoopy, since we all need a small, vicious dog to protect us in the wild. Since I still had sometime for the sunrise, I walked around a bit. I went to the edge of the property to see if I could figure out what the sound from last night was. But, no luck. Snoopy, had gone back to sleep, probably a more intelligent decision. (Read Day 1 and Day 2 before this, if you missed it.)
Soon, it was sunrise time and it was a moderately better one than the one yesterday. Lesser clouds. We finished packing since we’d be heading back this day. We hung around a bit and then went up to the dining area to have breakfast and clear the bills. Once we met up with Daniel, we explained the sounds from last night. He came across as surprised, but said that there was a Tigress with two 1 year old cubs. Sometimes they stray a away and she calls to them till they come back. So, that was the back and forth calls, that we heard for a long time. Great experience, nevertheless.
After breakfast and saying our goodbyes to everyone at Wild Valley Farm, we started riding back. Initially, as we got onto the dirt track through the cornfields, we saw that the clouds were gathering quick. Last thing I wanted was a wet ride back. ThunderDuck with the Moto D rear tyre performs well on terrain like this. It is easy to get traction with the deep threads also helped by the full load on the motorcycle. The 350cc motor on the Thunderbird does not make too much power anyway.
Some nice scenes like this farmer hard at work in the morning with his bullocks. Various different types of crop being grown here. While we were speaking with Daniel (of Wild Valley Farm), he had spoken about the growing popularity of corn due to it being a cash crop with lesser work. It is actually scary to see that most places are replacing the traditional crop with corn.
As we crossed over onto the main road, we could see the hills where we spent the days before. Beautiful view of the layers of mountains from there. It would be interesting to do multi-day treks through the forests, if that’s legal. I doubt its allowed to hike through a national park/ reserve.
The farm land surround the roads and the hills. Where the forests end, the villages and farmlands start. It must make it easy to get food in case you decide to hike through the region. We were looking for a good place to stop and relax for a bit.
Soon, we crossed back into Karnataka and we found a stream. Good place to stop, but the rocks around were very flat. Not easy to sit in riding gear and dip your feet in the water. More over, the water wasn’t very clean, probably a village or something up stream. Also, the fact that the tree nearby had pictures of Gods meant that we’d soon have uninvited company.
We rode on, and this picture below, gives you an idea of a large part of Karnataka’s landscape. Its flat with spaced out trees and shurbs. I said large part since, as you travel towards the western coast, we get the mountains of the Western Ghats with thick tropical forests and then the down to the beaches. The sky no longer looked as threatening as it was when we started out in the morning.
We came across a canal and a short stretch away from the main road, we saw steps. There’s Kavitha making herself comfortable, as I went around scouting around to make sure we would be okay there. It was a cool place, no issues.
I took some pictures and walking about, ended on the other side of the canal. I see that Kavitha and ThunderDuck as resting well and she’s already got her fish spa going on.
I walked back to the steps and made myself comfortable too. We spent quite a while, while I tried to figure out the types of fish in the water. Did not do any kind of specimen collection though, since I didn’t have anything to bring back the fish. I could have put it one of the empty fish tanks that I have sitting around at home, but I digress.
We sat around there for a while, till we had a group of guys who landed up for a swim. Got way too noisy very fast and it was time for us to move on. We had also had our fill by then. We started riding back and a short distance from Bangalore, we came across this lake. A group of Painted Storks were feeding together around here. Its around this time of the year that they have the breeding season.
After doing (actual) bird watching for a while, we started out and reached home, still in daylight to relax for the week ahead at work.
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