Journey distances are a lot shorter this time – we get a taxi to take us 100km south to ‘Wild Haven’ – a lodge in Masinagudi, on the edge of the Mudumalai National Park, again recommended by Carole & Norman at Casa Susegad in Goa. This stretch of ‘jungle’ covers 3 adjacent National Parks at the intersection of three states: Bandipur in Karnataka, Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad in Kerala. It is home to 50 tigers – the highest population in India, although it’s clear from reading Trip Advisor reports that our chances of seeing one are tiny.
A very handy map on the wall of the local school – this is where we are!
There are a lot of very exclusive lodges in this area – very fancy looking and expensive. Wild Haven, in contrast is simple, clean and friendly, owned by John who was born and bred here. The ‘jungle’ looks like any stretch of forest in the UK – not at all like the tropical rain forest that I normally associate with the word. It’s hard to imagine that it’s dangerous, with wild elephants, tigers, leopards, wild boar, sloth bears and bison, to name but a few. The lodge is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the elephants out, although a few of the fence posts have suffered from elephants using them as a scratching post!
There’s a tradition here of sitting outside around a fire in the evenings – very civilised. John is clearly very thoughtful and well informed on a breadth of issues. Over the years he has been involved in numerous local sustainability projects, including setting up a school for the local Nilgiris tribes who were predictably under-served. He suggests we take the children to visit the school, which turns out to be a great idea. It is simple but clean, the children very well turned out, very well behaved and quite excited to have visitors!
We go on a safari – unfortunately these days that means an official local govt safari, in a large bus. It’s not a great omen to see a large poster in the bus stating that there’s no guarantee of seeing animals! Of course it would help to be reasonably quiet on a safari, but in addition to the considerable noise of the bus, I have a toddler sat behind me (and therefore next to an open window) who clearly thinks it’s a great game to see just how loud he can shout. And he has an impressive set of lungs for his size and makes our children seem like church mice In comparison. So, we see a few spotted deer and a handful of peacocks and that’s about it.
Thankfully, that night our dinner was interrupted by a summons to see a wild elephant just outside the camp, but I’ll refer you to the children’s blogs for more details of that.
Spotted deer and a couple of bison were just about the extent of our wildlife spotting until the night time wild elephant adventure
Oh yes, and a few peacocks… but my Dad has one (Percy!) who regularly visits his garden in Preston, so this didn’t generate too many oohs and ahhs! Where are those tigers and leopards??
So, a great place to stay – we were just a bit unlucky in terms of the extent of wildlife we saw. Oh well – the tigers will just have to wait for another day.
Five Go Round The World 