Daroji bear Sanctuary - Directions, Road conditions and Maps

Travel dates: 11/26/2010 to 11/28/2010.

Directions from: Bangalore
Directions to: Jungle lodges (JLR) Daroji & Daroji Bear sanctuary
Routes: Direct to Daroji & To Daroji via Jogimatti/Chithradurga (C'durga)

Note: The road through Hospet is rank BAD for 150Kms and more. And the traffic situation in Hospet is bad as well. Its estimated to take about 4 hours or more for getting past that 150KMs.Please avoid Hospet unless you have reports that the road has been improved :) So, the routes explained here are through Bellary. There routes here are the ones recommended by JLR folks.

1. Direct to Daroji:

- Get to Mekhri circle. From Mekhri, go towards IISCAt the end, Take right and follow the road towards Yeshvantpur. Go past yashvantpur station. Stay on this road, this is NH4

- Continue on to the toll road (NH4).

- At Hiriyur, Take a right onto SH19, under the flyover, towards Chellakere (C'Kere)

- Continue on the same highway (SH19) past C'Kere towards Bellary. Bellary is about 100Kms from C'Kere.

- Before Bellary, Take the NH63 Bypass on the left.

Note: You will go past a level crossing. Once you are past it, look for a board marked for Hospet on the left. This is the NH 63 (Bellary) bypass and is a toll road.

- At the end of the bypass, turn left onto NH63 towards Hospet. You will go past Karnataka Power Corporation on the right. Continue on towards Hospet.

- There are a few points on this road where you could get confused. Once you are past the power plant, there will be a split on the road after some time. Stick to the right towards Thoranagallu/Hospet. Again, once past Thoranagallu, you will see another split. To the left is a double road and its inviting. But that not where you want to go! Take the right, towards Hospet. You will go over a bridge, crossing railway lines.

- Look for Papanayakahalli or PK Halli, about 10Kms before Hospet.

- Before you reach PK Halli, you will see a board on the right side of the road directing you to turn right into the Daroji bear sanctuary (3Kms it will say). If you are going to JLR, don’t take that road.

- Continue on NH63 for a couple of Kms from that point, into PK Halli. There you will see an Arch on the right. Its a concrete arch, like an entrance to some temple, painted pink/orange right now. There is also a JLR board on the left at that point.

- Take that right into the arch. JLR is about 3Kms from there.

Road condition:

- NH4 is fantastic, all the way through. It’s a divided highway with 2 or 3 lanes on each side. I hardly saw any potholes. I was able to cruise at 120Kmph or above.

- SH19 is beautiful all the way through to Bellary as well. However, its not a divided highway. It’s a two lane road. Again, I didn’t any road damage at all. You can easily cruise at 100+kmph, as long you keep an eye out for the speed-breakers - there are lots of speed-breakers as you enter villages along the way.

Food: Kamats before Tumkur on NH4, and then there is NOTHING other than small Dhabas and bakeries.

Maps: At the bottom.

2. Through Chithradurga (C’durga)/Jogimatti:

- Get to Mekhri circle. From Mekhri, go towards IISC. At the end, Take right and follow the road towards Yeshvantpur. Go past yashvantpur station. Stay on this road, this is NH4

- Continue on to the toll road (NH4) onto C’durga

- You will start seeing boards to C’durga and Jogimatti, pointing to the left. Then you will enter an area lined with shops near C’durga

- You will see a flyover shortly afterwards. Take a left onto SH48 under the flyover.

- A little distance down, you will see a fork on the road. There is a park (Vivekananda park) in the middle. Take the left at the fork.

- You go past a hospital on the left. After a short distance, you will see a circle on the road. Take a left at the circle. The circle is slightly to the right of the road at the point where you will take left. Ask for Jogimatti. This is the Jogimatti road. It’s a mud road after a while.

- Continue on the mud road (there are smaller mud roads leading off that road, don’t take them) till you hit the forest gate. Go past it to reach the Jogimatti base camp.

- On the way back, continue on to C’durga. Take a right on SH48.

Note: From here, I shall explain the directions to Daroji. If you are getting back to Bangalore, get back onto NH4 towards Bangalore and get home :)

- Continue on SH48 (go past NH4, don’t take NH4), onto Chellakere (C’Kere). C’kere is about 30Kms from C’durga.

- At C’Kere, get into town. You will hit a major circle, with a Nehru statue.

- Turn left towards Bellary. This is the Bangalore-Bellary road or SH19.

- Continue on the same highway (SH19) towards Bellary. Bellary is about 100Kms from C'Kere.

- Before Bellary, Take the NH63 Bypass on the left.

Note: You will go past a level crossing. Once you are past it, look for a board marked for Hospet on the left. This is the NH 63 (Bellary) bypass and is a toll road.

- At the end of the bypass, turn left onto NH63 towards Hospet. You will go past Karnataka Power Corporation on the right. Continue on towards Hospet.

- There are a few points on this road where you could get confused. Once you are past the power plant, there will be a split on the road after some time. Stick to the right towards Thoranagallu/Hospet. Again, once past Thoranagallu, you will see another split. To the left is a double road and its inviting. But that not where you want to go! Take the right, towards Hospet. You will go over a bridge, crossing railway lines.

- Look for Papanayakahalli or PK Halli, about 10Kms before Hospet.

- Before you reach PK Halli, you will see a board on the right side of the road directing you to turn right into the Daroji bear sanctuary (3Kms it will say). If you are going to JLR, don’t take that road.

- Continue on NH63 for a couple of Kms from that point, into PK Halli. There you will see an Arch on the right. Its a concrete arch, like an entrance to some temple, painted pink/orange right now. There is also a JLR board on the left at that point.

- Take that right into the arch. JLR is about 3Kms from there.

Road condition:

- NH4 is fantastic, all the way through. It’s a divided highway with 2 or 3 lanes on each side. I hardly saw any potholes. I was able to cruise at 120Kmph or above.

- SH48 from C’durga to C’kere is a bit patchy for about 5kms. After that, its smooth. It’s not a divided highway. Can cruise at close to 100Kmph or above.

- SH19 is beautiful all the way through to Bellary as well. However, its not a divided highway. It’s a two lane road. Again, I didn’t any road damage at all. You can easily cruise at 100kmph, as long you keep an eye out for the speed-breakers - there are lots of speed-breakers as you enter villages along the way.

Food: Kamats before Tumkur on NH4, and then there is NOTHING other than small Dhabas and bakeries.

Maps:

Route 1:

Mekhri circle to NH4

NH4 to SH19 - Turn right at Hiriyur

Satellite image of the turning into NH 63-bypass

(Look for those poultry farms on the left)

(There is a board that points to Hospet)

Turning into NH63

Bellary to Daroji/Hospet - big picture

Route 2:

See the map under "Mekhri circle to NH4" to get onto NH4

Getting into C'durga

Left turn to Jogimatti

Jogimatti - big picture

C'durga to C'Kere

(see the map under "Getting into C'durga" to get back to SH48)

C'Kere to Bellary

For Bellary to Daroji, Scroll up to this part on route 1.

Bannerghatta-Shivanahalli and some trees that were planted

Date: 11th July 2010

Place: Bannarghatta - Shivanahalli (en route to Jigani)

Route: Drive upto the point of entry to Bannerghatta national park. At that point it is a junction, take a left. Roughly 2 kms down, take a right - easily missable, but u should be able to spot people standing

there waiting for buses. This is near the Ragihalli gate. Once you get onto this right, its one straight road , including 5kms through the reserve forest where you can spot elephants and birds.

What we saw: Elephants, Birds - bee eaters, some predators, Malkhoa, Coucals, Babblers

We got this invitation from Ganesh who heard about a "tree-planting" exercise through his grapevine.

So a bunch of us set off in different vehicles towards the Ramakrishna Ashram in Shivanahalli.

We (Jey and Smi) set off at 630-ish from wheeler road. Stopped at Adigas near Wockhardt for a quick bite and drove towards the Bannerghatta zoo. We made our way towards Shivanahalli, but realized that we were very early and so did a couple of back and forths in the reserve area stretch. Here we spotted some interesting birds...

After a while though, we started seeing traffic on the road and figured people were converging towards the tree planting event, and we too headed that way.

Once we got there, we were served good idlis for breakfast after which we set out lead by the iownatree and rotary club sponsors, on a trek behind the ashram.

We reached the place where we saw a bulldozer (or some such equipment) creating holes. And we started planting the saplings...

After three odd hours, we finished and were told that we could move back for lunch, which again was surprisingly delicious. Or it could be that the manual labour had made us hungry!

All done, we got a debrief and came back home, sated and feeling like we had contributed to a better tomorrow!!!

Why this blog?

Well, it just so happened that a bunch of us spent sunday together doing some productive stuff near Bangalore. And thar did not involve sitting in front of the television or lazing around.

And one of us had a question - if we are busy doing something or the other over the weekends, how do we remember what we did on each such ocassion?

Hence the idea of the blog. The purpose is threefold.
1. Record our "worthy" weekend escapedes for posterity
2. Provide similar-minded people with ideas on what to do for weekends based on our own weekends, or any useful information that we identify
3. Use this as a forum to post any community events happening so that we reach out to a larger population

And since this is not a one time effort, or the ideas of a single individual, this is a team blog. We hope to expand the contributor list as we go along. Cheers!