A travelogue Murudeshwar, Malpe, Kaup

Over the years, travelling across the native soil, there was this urge to capture those journeys and create a showcase of sorts. The journeys stemmed from many uneventful work related travels to some very exciting personal escapades, the ones done by road are truly cherished the most. The best part about the travel is the chance to explore and the mysteries that unravel. I for one, a travel junkie, with a penchant for wildlife spotting, winged friends sighting, nature and anything that seems rather unusual, spontaneous, portraying glimpses of pure emotion is bound to find place in my Nikon D90 (most pics below are with 300mm focal length), goes without saying, the mind and the heart. There have been many instances when i have missed the chance of clicking some extraordinary moments, am beginning to keep alert now, like the instance when a mother duck was escorting her half a dozen ducklings into water and i just kept watching as the moment passed by..

Here is an account of the journey, the sightseeing, the photographic passion i am building on, all entwined n a recent road trip to Murudeshwara, Malpe, River Tern jungle lodges via Jog falls. Headed out in the wee hours and made a stop at a coffee parlour, reached Jog falls post lunch. Since this was already winter, we weren't really expecting gushing waters, but in the heart of hearts we were disappointed to see Raja, Rani, Rocket, Roarer all trickling down. This pic was taken from the farthest point that visitors are allowed. Unless ofocurse you want to risk it a bit and descend from the opposite end where some of the Kannada movie Mungaru Male clips were shot. Overall a nice place to hangout if you chose to make it an en route halt but I would not recommended it as a destination stop.

Jog falls

I tend to look around a bit, the photography itch just keeps taking over every now and then, so here was a tree thronged with hives.

The heat was killing all along, eventually it stopped bothering when the scenic coastal belt along the Honavar route started to unfold and we began to soak in the beauty, the palms, the backwaters, the paddy, sugarcane fields had to offer. On reaching Murudeshwar late evening after a good 9 hours journey, legs had almost become numb, needed stretching, movement, barely could see the shore but decided to take a walk nonetheless. Initial thoughts of being a safe place for women, in the vicinity of a religious place of worship, expected mannerisms would be comforting, but that was not to be, packs of drooling men in inebriated conditions.. The stay at RNS residency  was commendable, well kept, despite being a a picky eater and a eggetarian found the food relishing.

Sunrise at Murudeshwar temple

Murudeshwar shoreline

Car park at RNS Residency

Got a glimpse of the sun emerging from behind the temple, grabbed my camera to seize it. The shoreline is quite spectacular with a unique and spectacular line up of monuments, the Shiva statue nicely poised between the ornate temple tower on one side and RNS Residency on the other. Even the car parking area of the hotel adjoining the sea in itself is arresting enough.

There are a few motor sporting activities that are available like the motor boats, water scooters that we indulged in. If you are inclined to more exploration and have time on your hand, there is the St. Mary's island that is supposedly 1-1/2 hrs boat ride, there are timings for it, please do enquire beforehand. The same island could be also reached from Malpe beach where we had decided to embark on that ride, but alas when we reached Malpe, the ride was cancelled due to heavy winds. Meanwhile taking a stroll on the Murudeshwar beach, I did manage to sight some water birds, like this particular heron almost like just waiting for me to click and off it went.

Pond Heron

Little Stint

  

Pond Heron's flight

Grey Heron walking

Resumed commuting the next day, on our way to Malpe beach via Maravanthe. This stretch is marvelous with the Suparnika River on one side and the Arabian sea on the other. I fail to understand why the Maravanthe beach is not so popular with tourist, though for us it was ideal on reaching it panned out like exclusive beach with nobody but just us around. Ofcourse there are no places to eat/stay adjoining the beach  probably scaling down it's popularity. But go a little further on and there are plenty of joints, it was already close to later afternoon and hungry as were, looking to rush to the first eatery that we found which incidentally was Hotel Kanaka Landmark, good food, clean rest rooms, absolutely top priority for a traveler i guess. 

Hotel Kanaka Landmark

Malpe beach was crowded, even on the first working day of the week. Paragliding is an option here. For kids, there are the usual rides - camel, horse and the sand scooters. Managed few pics of the setting sun.

Sunset behind MK Gandhi's statue at Malpe beach

We badly wanted to see the lighthouse at Kaup beach and had to dash as we just got to know then that it would close by 7pm. Kaup is a much cleaner beach, lesser crowds and the lighthouse is quite amazing. It' s an uphill task to climb the winding stairs and the descent is equally narrow but if you want to experience some bit of adventure, make sure to not to miss this one.

Kaup lighthouse

Bottom up lighthouse shot

Top down lighthouse

Thanks to our miscalculations of duration at most places that we halted, we had no choice but to head back to Murudeshwar well into the night, certainly not advisable as we got to realize it's quite scary as most connecting roads are not well lit infact i would say some had no lights we were driving in pitch darkness, to our luck the headlights were working alright and we managed safely!
Next day all ready to head back to were we started Bangalore. Idagunji was on our radar from the start, so we did a short halt there visited the ancient Ganesh temple. As we sat back reminiscing on the drive back home, it suddenly occurred if we took a slight detour before Shimoga we could possibly cover Jungle Lodges and Resorts River Tern as well. Would like to reserve the Jungle lodges experience for another post as it evokes appreciation of the highest order, infact i credit it with having initiated my interest into wildlife, photography and would like to merge it with more of their kind that I have been too.
Happy Blogging!
Rashmi VR