Impromptu Drive to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary
Before this, the shortest trip on which I wrote a travelogue was a day drive. And now here I am, writing a travelogue on a drive that did not even last 7 hours. At first I did not plan to write about this one at all. But then on second thought, I felt there is still a story here that could be told and then could not resists telling it. Please bear with me as I write this story of a less than 7 hours of travel, including time spent at the destination walking around.
So the the story goes like this: After a few back to back weekend drives, I finally got tired of "get up early and drive all day" routines , and decided to take a break and take it easy at home this weekend. I got up late on Saturday. Had a nice late morning coffee and enjoyed lazing around and browsing internet and catching up on WhatsApp groups. Replied to a couple of office emails too.
Although I was having a nice lazy time at home, by around 11am, I started feeling restless. I felt I was missing out on driving on a beautiful sunny Saturday, and felt like an idiot for sitting at home with such lovely weather outside and a free day at hand. That feeling of restlessness grew, and eventually by noon, I decided to plan a drive and make the best of the remaining day.
Some quick search for destinations in my head - for places which would offer a good drive and also a nice experience on this lovely winter afternoon - lead me to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. I have been to Ranganathittu several times in the past, but this is one of those places where one can keep visiting and it never disappoints. This place is perfect in this season, and the road to there is a beautiful fast expressway now. Google Maps showed zero traffic till there, and Google estimate was of a superfast arrival there that afternoon.
My BMW 320d needed a drive too, and this fast expressway drive sounded like a perfect Saturday afternoon run for my 320d as well. So it felt like it all fell in place, and I got a perfect plan for the afternoon.
I got up from my desk and closed my laptop, quickly got ready, ate lunch at home (my wife had cooked a delicious lunch this Saturday, but it helped me that she was busy with her own plans that afternoon
), took my camera and car keys, and stepped out for this totally impromptu drive.
By the time I got in my car and cranked the engine (pushed the start button, to be precise; I miss those old school and dreamy key turns to crank the engine) it was 1:07pm on a beautiful sunny Saturday. Funny that till an hour ago, my plan was to stay home this Saturday and take it easy.
Trusting Google Maps' predictions, I was expecting a super quick drive with zero traffic. I was quite excited about that.
However, my excitement changed to frustration when I reached Hosur road, on way to NICE road which would take me to Mysore Expressway. Hosur road was full of heavy traffic, and at one of those long and complex traffic signals there, it took me 15 minutes just to cross that one signal. Looks like Google Maps had got it all wrong. I was cursing myself for trusting Google Maps on the roads being all empty. What was shown in green in Google Maps earlier had now turned dark red.
After managing to find my way out of that Hosur road traffic and joining NICE road, I saw a huge red line in Google Maps and a long line of trucks in front me leading to the toll booth. Looked like Google Maps had got it all wrong again.
At NICE road toll entry, I saw such line of trucks in front of me, and an apt writing on this truck "
Khel Kismat Ka" which described my drive plan:
However, once I crossed NICE road toll both and started driving further, my faith in Google Maps got restored back. It turned out it was indeed all clear on the highways after this point, and in spite of the delays so far, Google Maps estimation for total driving time was still the same.
Once I entered Mysore Expressway, I was happy to see no traffic. I absolutely enjoyed that drive. Gorgeous sunny Saturday, pleasant winter weather, lovely six-lane roads, and no traffic. The conditions were so perfect that my drive felt like it was too short. I would have loved a 1000km drive in those conditions. But Alas, my drive was just about 100km once I entered Mysore Expressway.
The conditions were so perfect that even without having to overspeed, I reached my destination is very quick time. It does help that Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary is very easily accessible from the expressway, and when there is zero traffic, it is a mere 10 minutes away from the expressway.
I reached Ranganathittu well ahead of my estimated time in the end, and had a plenty of time to spend the evening there walking around, taking a boat ride, and taking bird photographs.
Parked in Ranganathittu, after a lovely drive through the best of the driving conditions:
I spent the next couple of hours walking around there, enjoying the lovely weather and the scenery, and also took the customary boat ride for bird watching.
The boats are a great experience at Ranganathittu, and now it was the best season too:
I often enjoy just these peaceful boat rides as much as I enjoy watching birds there:
Beware! Crocodiles in the water. The waters are full of crocodiles, and I love photographing crocodiles as much as I love photographing birds:
This croc gave a lovely pose:
This one was sleeping happily, just like what I had originally planned to do at home on this lovely Saturday afternoon:
Another view of the sleeping croc:
One more large crocodile that looked quite photogenic:
And finally one more crocodile, who had found a lone rock in the middle of the waters and was basking in the sun:
The scenes of boat rides there looked as photogenic as the crocs and the birds to me:
And finally, coming to birds, yes the sanctuary is actually famous for birds, and I will share a few bird photos in the next post. Sorry about the overload of crocodile photos above.
But not just the bird close-ups, the sanctuary offers great scenes of birds flying through green trees and over the water, and I loved taking many "environmental" photos there too. The evening light was perfect for me to try some of these environmental shots there.
This one, for example, is something that I liked a lot:
Anyways, sorry for the long preamble. Let me share the more conventional bird photographs in the next post.