Shakleshpur - Beauty of Western Ghats

A visit to Shakleshpur is on the travel list of every person based in Bangalore. Come monsoons and it is very tempting to visit the places in Western Ghats. The places that most often come to mind are Madekari, Shakleshpur, Chikkamangulur and Shimoga. For some years now, we always ended up going to Madekari or Chikkamangulur, but never managed to visit Shakleshpur. So this time, it was the turn of Shakleshpur. This trip is ideal for a bike trip, but since we were traveling with kids, we drove.

This year, the monsoons in Bangalore have been very bad. We hardly had any rains :(  We planned this trip hoping there will be no dread of rainfall in western ghats and we were not disappointed. Shakleshpur is about 260 Kms from Bangalore and is on the highway connecting Bangalore - Mangalore. Shakleshpur is famous for hits hills, treks, coffee plantations, water falls, spices. It took us about 6 hours (with a break) to reach Shakleshpur. The road from Bangalore to Shakleshpur is pretty decent - 4 lane highway. Though after Kanigal, since the highway work is still in progress, we had to take diversions. But the traffic is not very heavy, hence did not feel the pain of diversions. The route we took was Bangalore > Nelamangala (remember to take the Mangalore Exit at Nelamangala) > Kanigal > Hassan > Shakleshpur.

Lush Green Fields on the way to resort

Since it was not a very long drive, we decided to have our breakfast in Bangalore and started around 8AM. There are few joints for breakfast on the highway. There was some traffic around Yeshwantpur and this continued till Nelamangala. Once we took a exit at Nelamangala, the traffic got better. Until we reached Hassan, it was very sunny and no signs of rain. We were wondering whether the "weather" would be sunny and dry even in Shakleshpur. Kept our fingers crossed. However once we crossed Hassan and got closer to Shakleshpur - there came the rains of western ghats. It got very cloudy and then the heavy down pour. The rain and the smell of rain was just what we wanted!

View from balcony of our cottage

Pond & Ducks in the Resort

 There are quite a few options to stay in Shakleshpur. There are resorts, home stays, hotels. We had booked our stay with "The Hills Resorts" http://thehills.in/ . This resort is about 20 Kms from the town of Shakleshpur. The resort is on an excellent location. This is away from the main road and built inside the coffee plantation. There are 2 styles of cottages - Indonesian and Swiss. We had booked Indonesian cottage for 2 nights. The Indonesian cottages are well designed and have very good views from the balcony. In the hindsight, the pricing seemed a little on the higher end for the kind of food and facilities it provided. However, full marks to the location, the style of cottages and the best part - there is no mobile network within the resort.

Kids enjoying jumping on the Trampoline

This is one of those places which is best, when visited in rains. Ideal way to spend time here, is to sit in the balcony with your favorite book and a cup of steaming coffee or Soup and of course see and hear the heavy rains. The resort has a pond at the center with few ducks which keep quaking. There is trampoline for the kids to jump. It also has a well stocked games like Badminton, Archery, Volley Ball, Chess, Chinese Checkers etc. We had fun playing these games. One point of caution - the staff here is not very professional, but are very helpful. You will have to tell them multiple times if you need something. And which ever guest puts more pressure, they seemed to attend to them. They had no schedules for breakfast, lunch, dinner. We had to actually tell them to get the dinner ready by 8-8:30PM after our first days experience where they had not prepared the dinner until 9PM. This was little disappointing, but since they are very simple minded people, you tend to ignore such incidents.

There aren't many places to visit around the resort, which was actually a boon for us. The moment we have lot of places to see/visit, you end up visiting all the places thinking you may not come here again. This was just perfect for us. We spent lot of time in the resort reading, playing games, watching TV and sleeping.


On the evening of the day we reached the resort, we walked around the resort to a small village. It was pouring heavily and it was kind of fun to walk in the rains with the umbrellas. Evening was spent in the resort playing games and relaxing.

Views from the temple covered in clouds

Clearing view

On the next day we visited a old temple on a hill top. the views from here were awesome. It was pouring very heavily when we reached the temple and the views were covered with thick cloud. After about 10 min of heavy rain, the clouds started dispersing and we could see the beautiful green hills which looked liked they were covered with green velvet. We further trekked upwards on to a top of a small hill. This is a superb spot. From here one gets to see the beauty of western ghats, water falls in the far off hills and greenery all over. We sat on top of the hill for some time - admiring the beauty and just letting ourselves sink into the calmness of nature.

Whom ping Willow

Trekking

Top View of Temple from Hill Top

Great Views of Western Ghats from Hill Top

 Later in the evening we went to visit the water falls. The water falls is hidden among the trees and there is no sign board or direction to the water falls. We took the direction from some passers by to reach the falls. The falls at this time of the year was pretty good as there was plenty of water. But, because the falls had strong currents, we could not get into the water. We were told that during summer one can stand below the water falls. That must be fun! We also visited a old Kerala Style temple which was built in the 1st century. This is about 8-10 KMs from the resort. We did not find anything great about this temple. But since we had time, we visited it.

Water Falls

Strong current of water

The following day was time to check out. We had our breakfast and checked out. On our way back, we visited Tipu's Fort at Shakleshpur. This is not a very big fort, but is in quite good conditions. We need to climb about 250 steps to reach the fort top. There was no write up on the history of the fort at the venue. This was a little disappointing, as we could see the different parts of the fort but had no clue about the history.

Tipu's Fort

After the fort, it was straight drive to Bangalore. Another trip with full of great memories of nature's beauty and we are back fully recharged and rejuvenated.