WWF-India's National Nature Camping Programme - Brahmagiri Report
The Background
Following a survey conducted in June, the first ever WWF-India nature camp at the Brahmagiri wildlife sanctuary was held towards the end of October. The specific time was chosen to coincide with the ending of the south-west monsoon which brings torrential rains to the W. Ghats mountains in which this sanctuary is situated. At this time of year, the sanctuary is lush and green from the monsoonal water, but at the same time, dries enough to make trekking a pleasure. All the campers traveled from Chennai to Mysore by the same train and were ushered to the waiting pick-up transport at Mysore Railway station. The trip to campsite took about three and a half hours, passing through Hunsur, Gonnikoppa and Srimangla towns and climbing some 1000 mts up the Western Ghats. The camp was attended by 12 persons, including four who had already attended earlier camps in the Great Himalayan National Park, Andamans and Corbett National Park, and was conducted by Mr. Preston Ahimaz, Field Director-Nature Camps, WWF-India.
The Sanctuary
The Brahmagiri Wild Life Sanctuary is a part of Western Ghats, located in Kodagu district, the coffee capital of India in Karnataka. Though the area around the Brahmagiri Peak was only recently identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Western Ghats, it has been recognized for long as a place with an unusual geography, harboring a great variety of life. It was legally notified as a sanctuary in 1974. Covering an area of over 180 sq km, the sanctuary exemplifies an ecosystem found only in the higher parts of the Western Ghats, a patchwork of dense shola forests set contrastingly with grasslands. The sanctuary has evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, as well as shola-grassland habitat. The eastern tip of the sanctuary almost touches the north western edge of the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, separated only by a narrow strip of coffee plantations. The southern boundary adjoins Kerala State. There are human settlements around the sanctuary which is also surrounded by agricultural fields and coffee plantations, and since the sanctuary is an important elephant corridor as well, man-elephant conflict is not uncommon.
The Campsite
The campsite, 2 km from the well-known Irpu Falls and 1 km from the Brahmagiri sanctuary entrance, is the residential premises of the Ramcad coffee estate owners, extended into a homestay, with cute rooms and a dining gazebo which latter overlooks the long, flagston drive from the gate to the buildings. The whole premises is lavishly decorated with ornnamental plants, most of which were in flower, filling the place with colour. Coffee plants surround the premises, coming right up to the buildings and these, thickly interspersed by wild as well as fruiting trees and coconut and areca nut palms (which are essential as coffee needs much shade), provide a dense, forest-like scenario, which is often visited by wildlife like gaur (bison), sambar, wild boar and others, at night.
The Camp
Day-1
On reaching campsite, the campers were allotted rooms which were to be their home for the next four days. After settling down, lunch was served, following which the group set out to visit the famous Irpu Falls, which was now in full flow following the monsoonal rains. Located inside the forest, about a kilometer from the gate and the Temple, the falls was a magnificent sight. The Falls comprises of a series of cascades, large and small, sheer and gradual, and the roar of its rushing water could be heard well before it came into sight. The height of the main cascade is 20 mts and the waters, although not snow-fed, are very cold and provide for an invigorating bath which some campers could not resist later on in the camp. A good many birds, including fairy bluebird, white-cheeked barbet, bulbuls and others as well as butterflies and dragonflies were seen around the Falls.
Later than evening, after tea, a slide show on wildlife covering common mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates of India, was screened. Still later, the campers took a cloud-obscured night walk along the winding, undulating road through the coffee estates to savor the balmy mountain atmosphere of cool air mixed with the smell of damp vegetation.
Day-2
The next morning, two jeeps were arranged to transport the campers to the Wynaad wildlife sanctuary, a short distance to the south, for a safari ride through the sanctuary. After an early breakfast, the campers jumped into the jeeps with a packed lunch and sped towards Wynaad, initially along the pot-holed road through the coffee estates, toward Kutta and on to Wynaad, where the mandatory guides were picked up and the jeeps proceeded onto the designated safari route. After traveling together for a while, at a fork in the road, the two vehicles parted company, each taking one branch of the fork, which was really the start of a large loop which comprised the safari route. Both groups saw chital, wild boar and birds, and subsequently crossed each other at a point on the loop-road. Soon after passing each other, one group was treated to a sight of a pack of ten wild dogs (dhole) which emerged from the brush, first one, then another, soon followed by the whole pack which did not have any young pups with the pack. The dogs were at complete ease in the presence of the six elated campers in the jeep, and gazed unfazed at them, even sitting down and lolling on the road for awhile. Both groups saw elephants on the return leg of the safari, close to the gate.
After emerging from the safari, the party proceeded toward the Tirunelli Temple, located inside the park to take a trek route starting from nearby. However, on arriving at the site, it was seen that the trekking formalities were extremely inconvenient and so the trek was substituted by a walk to a nearby Falls, where some large forest butterflies like the blue mormon, red helen and paris peacock were seen. Other butterflies as well as a pair of Malabar squirrels also drew the attention of the group. Lunch was had by a wayside forest brook, after which the party headed back to camp, ensuring that no litter had been left behind.
At campsite, the group relaxed until tea, after which another slide show was held: this time on snakes, and covered the reptiles’ relationship with man, natural history, diversity and conservation status. Dinner was served as usual at the gazebo subsequent to which the campers took another night walk along the estate road, this time partly in bright moonlight.
Day-3
The morning of the third day saw the campers getting ready for their assault on the Brahmagiri sanctuary’s steep slopes. Following breakfast, the party began its trek through the Irpu Temple gate into the jungle and towards the roaring Falls, turning right before reaching it and clambering over a huge fallen tree trunk that lay squarely across the path. The initial part of the trek was relatively gentle, but then began a steep rocky ascent through dense jungle that did not let up. Leeches, which the delayed rainfall had made abundant, gleefully sensed the presence of the huffing and puffing group, waving their elephant-trunk-like bodies in desperate blindness to seek the source of the footfalls, then, once oriented, humping quickly along the forest floor in their direction.
After about 2 hours of uphill trekking, the campers broke out of the forest onto an open grassy slope across which a wide vista of rolling grass-covered hills interspersed with pockets of wet, evergreen, montane rainforest. The trail was level now and led into a couple of dark sholas (one of which contained a fast, rocky mountain stream which had to be crossed by some acrobatic rock-hopping) before rising up sharply and breaking out onto a wide open high altitude meadow beyond which the Narimalai peak rose majestically 1500 mts into the heavens. Here the campers stopped briefly to catch their breath, admire the scenery, take photographs and, of course, check their legs and feet for leeches, which latter they had been doing ever so frequently during the trek. All had been instructed to rub blue washing soap onto their shoes as a leech-repellant and this had proved quite effective although a few determined and enterprising leeches did manage to get past the blue barrier and tuck into the foodfest laid out for them.
Climbing further up, the group reached a sheet of rock on the hillside where another break was taken before the final climb which led to a plateau, beyond which lay the Forest Rest House (Narimalai Hut), the last point on the trek. The group had by now stretched out into a long 400-mt line of straggling sub-groups, and the first ones to reach the rock stopped here to allow the laggards to catch up. There was a bracing wind blowing here which whipped at the face and hair, but the climb-weary campers welcomed this refreshing blast. Once the group had gathered together again, the party breasted the slope and crossed the level patch, stopping at the entrance of the shoal in which the Hut was located. Here three campers moved on toward the Hut, crossing a slippery 4-pole bridge across a stream, while the remaining intrepid ten (including a 60-year old) stoutly headed for the final assault on the Narimalai peak.
At the Rest House, a veritable army of leeches converged menacingly toward the three who had arrived there, whereupon a blue-soap barrier line was hurriedly drawn around the steps of the locked structure to prevent the leeches from reaching their intended victims. Meanwhile, up on Narimalai, the remaining 10 campers pushed their way up arriving to witness a stunning panorama from the top of the peak. From this highest point in the area, the land slid away in all directions – sweeping meadows dotted with shola – with the shifting clouds adding to the ethereal beauty of this spellbinding, wild place. After exulting in this heady experience, the party quickly made its way down towards the Rest House, hastened by an ominous cloud cap that had begun to form. On reaching the Rest House, leeches and water were removed from footwear, a light snack of bread, jam and sambar was gulped down, and the group began it’s return trek to base-camp – and lunch.
As always, the descent was harder on the knees and feet, though easier on the lungs. A slight drizzle now began, bringing out the mandatory umbrellas, and the mountains were treated to the unusual sight of a line of umbrellas weaving and bobbing down the grassy slopes. On the way down, a 35-strong party of students and teachers who were on their way up to the Rest House for a 2-day stay was encountered, and, given the condition of the Rest House which had no electricity, no water and very few toilets, they were not envied. The rest of the journey was uneventful and the group reached base-camp in the late afternoon to a much-awaited lunch at the gazebo.
Day-4
The last day of camp began early with a cup of tea and a jeep ride to the Nagrahole Tiger Reserve, which lay north-east of Brahmagiri. At the sanctuary, the group climbed into a Forest Department van and set off on a along the interior jungle paths, just as in Wynaad. This time the safari did not yield wild dogs or elephants, but the other usual fare – chital, sambar and wild boar was served. In addition, some common langur and a pair of stripe-necked mongoose were seen. These are large by mongoose standards, about a metre long and 30 cms tall, with long, orange-brown fur, a black stripe behind each ear, black feet and a black-tipped tail held in an upward curl, scorpion-like. Peafowl, lapwing and crested serpent eagle were also seen.
After the van safari, the jeeps dropped the campers off at Ramcad by late morning for breakfast. There was time for a walk before lunch but most of the group opted to walk along the road (they’d had enough of leeches). Four others decided to conquer the hill behind the Ramcad estate which had a belt of dense forest halfway up its slope, with grassy woodland above. The hill climb was easy enough initially, ascending through coffee fields with scores of butterflies flitting about: skippers, grass yellows, jezebels, chocolate pansies, striped tiger, blue tigers, common crows, great eggflies,etc., as well as grasshoppers, dragonflies and other invertebrates. At the end of the coffee fields, however, the walkers came upon the wall of bamboo, lantana and other impenetrable vegetation and had to wander along the edge of this wall until a gap was located and entered. The group had to push through dense jungle, clamber over fallen bamboo, tree trunks and rocky spots complete with fierce ants, until it burst out of the forest belt and onto the grassy woodland above. Lack of time precluded conquest of the crest of the hill, so the foursome picked their way through the un chartered forest belt, following signs and landmarks noted on the way up. As the group emerged from the forest belt, a black eagle flew low behind them, as if urging them off its territory.
Back at campsite, the campers reassembled, lunched, packed, and, after the usual camp-end photo-sessions, departed from the Ramcad estate and the Brahmagiri wilderness in the chartered van that had arrived to pick them up. The return journey to Mysore was made via the Nagrahole National Park which took the group through a long, refreshing ride through the sanctuary, yielding a long and close sighting of a huge bull gaur which must have weighed in at close to a thousand kilos. After watching the massive animal graze unconcerned for a while and firing off dozens of camera frames, the van moved on, arriving at Mysore well in time for the night train to Chennai.
Following a survey conducted in June, the first ever WWF-India nature camp at the Brahmagiri wildlife sanctuary was held towards the end of October. The specific time was chosen to coincide with the ending of the south-west monsoon which brings torrential rains to the W. Ghats mountains in which this sanctuary is situated. At this time of year, the sanctuary is lush and green from the monsoonal water, but at the same time, dries enough to make trekking a pleasure. All the campers traveled from Chennai to Mysore by the same train and were ushered to the waiting pick-up transport at Mysore Railway station. The trip to campsite took about three and a half hours, passing through Hunsur, Gonnikoppa and Srimangla towns and climbing some 1000 mts up the Western Ghats. The camp was attended by 12 persons, including four who had already attended earlier camps in the Great Himalayan National Park, Andamans and Corbett National Park, and was conducted by Mr. Preston Ahimaz, Field Director-Nature Camps, WWF-India.
The Sanctuary
The Brahmagiri Wild Life Sanctuary is a part of Western Ghats, located in Kodagu district, the coffee capital of India in Karnataka. Though the area around the Brahmagiri Peak was only recently identified as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Western Ghats, it has been recognized for long as a place with an unusual geography, harboring a great variety of life. It was legally notified as a sanctuary in 1974. Covering an area of over 180 sq km, the sanctuary exemplifies an ecosystem found only in the higher parts of the Western Ghats, a patchwork of dense shola forests set contrastingly with grasslands. The sanctuary has evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, as well as shola-grassland habitat. The eastern tip of the sanctuary almost touches the north western edge of the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, separated only by a narrow strip of coffee plantations. The southern boundary adjoins Kerala State. There are human settlements around the sanctuary which is also surrounded by agricultural fields and coffee plantations, and since the sanctuary is an important elephant corridor as well, man-elephant conflict is not uncommon.
The Campsite
The campsite, 2 km from the well-known Irpu Falls and 1 km from the Brahmagiri sanctuary entrance, is the residential premises of the Ramcad coffee estate owners, extended into a homestay, with cute rooms and a dining gazebo which latter overlooks the long, flagston drive from the gate to the buildings. The whole premises is lavishly decorated with ornnamental plants, most of which were in flower, filling the place with colour. Coffee plants surround the premises, coming right up to the buildings and these, thickly interspersed by wild as well as fruiting trees and coconut and areca nut palms (which are essential as coffee needs much shade), provide a dense, forest-like scenario, which is often visited by wildlife like gaur (bison), sambar, wild boar and others, at night.
The Camp
Day-1
On reaching campsite, the campers were allotted rooms which were to be their home for the next four days. After settling down, lunch was served, following which the group set out to visit the famous Irpu Falls, which was now in full flow following the monsoonal rains. Located inside the forest, about a kilometer from the gate and the Temple, the falls was a magnificent sight. The Falls comprises of a series of cascades, large and small, sheer and gradual, and the roar of its rushing water could be heard well before it came into sight. The height of the main cascade is 20 mts and the waters, although not snow-fed, are very cold and provide for an invigorating bath which some campers could not resist later on in the camp. A good many birds, including fairy bluebird, white-cheeked barbet, bulbuls and others as well as butterflies and dragonflies were seen around the Falls.
Later than evening, after tea, a slide show on wildlife covering common mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates of India, was screened. Still later, the campers took a cloud-obscured night walk along the winding, undulating road through the coffee estates to savor the balmy mountain atmosphere of cool air mixed with the smell of damp vegetation.
Day-2
The next morning, two jeeps were arranged to transport the campers to the Wynaad wildlife sanctuary, a short distance to the south, for a safari ride through the sanctuary. After an early breakfast, the campers jumped into the jeeps with a packed lunch and sped towards Wynaad, initially along the pot-holed road through the coffee estates, toward Kutta and on to Wynaad, where the mandatory guides were picked up and the jeeps proceeded onto the designated safari route. After traveling together for a while, at a fork in the road, the two vehicles parted company, each taking one branch of the fork, which was really the start of a large loop which comprised the safari route. Both groups saw chital, wild boar and birds, and subsequently crossed each other at a point on the loop-road. Soon after passing each other, one group was treated to a sight of a pack of ten wild dogs (dhole) which emerged from the brush, first one, then another, soon followed by the whole pack which did not have any young pups with the pack. The dogs were at complete ease in the presence of the six elated campers in the jeep, and gazed unfazed at them, even sitting down and lolling on the road for awhile. Both groups saw elephants on the return leg of the safari, close to the gate.
After emerging from the safari, the party proceeded toward the Tirunelli Temple, located inside the park to take a trek route starting from nearby. However, on arriving at the site, it was seen that the trekking formalities were extremely inconvenient and so the trek was substituted by a walk to a nearby Falls, where some large forest butterflies like the blue mormon, red helen and paris peacock were seen. Other butterflies as well as a pair of Malabar squirrels also drew the attention of the group. Lunch was had by a wayside forest brook, after which the party headed back to camp, ensuring that no litter had been left behind.
At campsite, the group relaxed until tea, after which another slide show was held: this time on snakes, and covered the reptiles’ relationship with man, natural history, diversity and conservation status. Dinner was served as usual at the gazebo subsequent to which the campers took another night walk along the estate road, this time partly in bright moonlight.
Day-3
The morning of the third day saw the campers getting ready for their assault on the Brahmagiri sanctuary’s steep slopes. Following breakfast, the party began its trek through the Irpu Temple gate into the jungle and towards the roaring Falls, turning right before reaching it and clambering over a huge fallen tree trunk that lay squarely across the path. The initial part of the trek was relatively gentle, but then began a steep rocky ascent through dense jungle that did not let up. Leeches, which the delayed rainfall had made abundant, gleefully sensed the presence of the huffing and puffing group, waving their elephant-trunk-like bodies in desperate blindness to seek the source of the footfalls, then, once oriented, humping quickly along the forest floor in their direction.
After about 2 hours of uphill trekking, the campers broke out of the forest onto an open grassy slope across which a wide vista of rolling grass-covered hills interspersed with pockets of wet, evergreen, montane rainforest. The trail was level now and led into a couple of dark sholas (one of which contained a fast, rocky mountain stream which had to be crossed by some acrobatic rock-hopping) before rising up sharply and breaking out onto a wide open high altitude meadow beyond which the Narimalai peak rose majestically 1500 mts into the heavens. Here the campers stopped briefly to catch their breath, admire the scenery, take photographs and, of course, check their legs and feet for leeches, which latter they had been doing ever so frequently during the trek. All had been instructed to rub blue washing soap onto their shoes as a leech-repellant and this had proved quite effective although a few determined and enterprising leeches did manage to get past the blue barrier and tuck into the foodfest laid out for them.
Climbing further up, the group reached a sheet of rock on the hillside where another break was taken before the final climb which led to a plateau, beyond which lay the Forest Rest House (Narimalai Hut), the last point on the trek. The group had by now stretched out into a long 400-mt line of straggling sub-groups, and the first ones to reach the rock stopped here to allow the laggards to catch up. There was a bracing wind blowing here which whipped at the face and hair, but the climb-weary campers welcomed this refreshing blast. Once the group had gathered together again, the party breasted the slope and crossed the level patch, stopping at the entrance of the shoal in which the Hut was located. Here three campers moved on toward the Hut, crossing a slippery 4-pole bridge across a stream, while the remaining intrepid ten (including a 60-year old) stoutly headed for the final assault on the Narimalai peak.
At the Rest House, a veritable army of leeches converged menacingly toward the three who had arrived there, whereupon a blue-soap barrier line was hurriedly drawn around the steps of the locked structure to prevent the leeches from reaching their intended victims. Meanwhile, up on Narimalai, the remaining 10 campers pushed their way up arriving to witness a stunning panorama from the top of the peak. From this highest point in the area, the land slid away in all directions – sweeping meadows dotted with shola – with the shifting clouds adding to the ethereal beauty of this spellbinding, wild place. After exulting in this heady experience, the party quickly made its way down towards the Rest House, hastened by an ominous cloud cap that had begun to form. On reaching the Rest House, leeches and water were removed from footwear, a light snack of bread, jam and sambar was gulped down, and the group began it’s return trek to base-camp – and lunch.
As always, the descent was harder on the knees and feet, though easier on the lungs. A slight drizzle now began, bringing out the mandatory umbrellas, and the mountains were treated to the unusual sight of a line of umbrellas weaving and bobbing down the grassy slopes. On the way down, a 35-strong party of students and teachers who were on their way up to the Rest House for a 2-day stay was encountered, and, given the condition of the Rest House which had no electricity, no water and very few toilets, they were not envied. The rest of the journey was uneventful and the group reached base-camp in the late afternoon to a much-awaited lunch at the gazebo.
Day-4
The last day of camp began early with a cup of tea and a jeep ride to the Nagrahole Tiger Reserve, which lay north-east of Brahmagiri. At the sanctuary, the group climbed into a Forest Department van and set off on a along the interior jungle paths, just as in Wynaad. This time the safari did not yield wild dogs or elephants, but the other usual fare – chital, sambar and wild boar was served. In addition, some common langur and a pair of stripe-necked mongoose were seen. These are large by mongoose standards, about a metre long and 30 cms tall, with long, orange-brown fur, a black stripe behind each ear, black feet and a black-tipped tail held in an upward curl, scorpion-like. Peafowl, lapwing and crested serpent eagle were also seen.
After the van safari, the jeeps dropped the campers off at Ramcad by late morning for breakfast. There was time for a walk before lunch but most of the group opted to walk along the road (they’d had enough of leeches). Four others decided to conquer the hill behind the Ramcad estate which had a belt of dense forest halfway up its slope, with grassy woodland above. The hill climb was easy enough initially, ascending through coffee fields with scores of butterflies flitting about: skippers, grass yellows, jezebels, chocolate pansies, striped tiger, blue tigers, common crows, great eggflies,etc., as well as grasshoppers, dragonflies and other invertebrates. At the end of the coffee fields, however, the walkers came upon the wall of bamboo, lantana and other impenetrable vegetation and had to wander along the edge of this wall until a gap was located and entered. The group had to push through dense jungle, clamber over fallen bamboo, tree trunks and rocky spots complete with fierce ants, until it burst out of the forest belt and onto the grassy woodland above. Lack of time precluded conquest of the crest of the hill, so the foursome picked their way through the un chartered forest belt, following signs and landmarks noted on the way up. As the group emerged from the forest belt, a black eagle flew low behind them, as if urging them off its territory.
Back at campsite, the campers reassembled, lunched, packed, and, after the usual camp-end photo-sessions, departed from the Ramcad estate and the Brahmagiri wilderness in the chartered van that had arrived to pick them up. The return journey to Mysore was made via the Nagrahole National Park which took the group through a long, refreshing ride through the sanctuary, yielding a long and close sighting of a huge bull gaur which must have weighed in at close to a thousand kilos. After watching the massive animal graze unconcerned for a while and firing off dozens of camera frames, the van moved on, arriving at Mysore well in time for the night train to Chennai.
