This was a nice little one night and two days trip to Talakad, Shivanasamudra and Somanathpur, staying at KSTDC's Hotel Mayura Bharachukki Shivanasamudra. The hotel is located in a very calm locality, just a little away from but on the way to the Bharachukki Water Falls, and is surrounded by abundant variety of birds around its location!
The Cauvery beach spot was not so crowded.. and the water was low enough to spend some time on. We had visited Talakad in the past, August 2004, and in October 2014. So this one in May 2024 makes it the third trip, and it is interesting to note that the gap between has been about 10 years each time!
Starting at 11:25 am we reached Hotel Mayura Bharachukki Shivanasamudra at a distance of 44 km (route map here), by about 12:45 pm, covering in about 1h 20m, that included a short 5 min. stop on the way at a Cauvery water view and coracle boating spot, while also viewing a lot of scenic Cauvery water body surroundings, fields, a river bridge, and so on, along the route. Along the route, we also passed through a couple of nice looking ancient Temples like Madhyaranga Shri Ranganathaswamy Temple, and Shri Prasanna Meenakshi & Someshwara Temple, just seeing them from outside.
We have stayed at a few other KSTDC Mayura hotels at other locations like Madikeri (Coorg) and Mysore, and have always liked their simplicity at the same time nice ambience. This Mayura Hotel's stay was also very good; the suite room was very spacious and the food was very nice. Breakfast was part of the package, but they serve on the table on a plate filled with the combo of items. For other Meals we pay; they take order in advance and you go to the Restaurant once ready.
We drove to the Bharachukki waterfall that is at about 1.8 km (route map here) from the hotel, but it was 5:30 pm, but the gate was already closed, as the open timings are from 9 am to 5 pm.
A long walk for half an hour between 9:15 to 9:45 am, on the mud road that starts just beside the hotel and goes in between the fields behind the hotel, through up to the Cauvery spot that is located there, was great. See walk route map here; but, note that Google shows an arc to the spot we went to, and it is unable to mark the path by foot via the actual mud road available there. The variety and number of birds we could spot in that surroundings, including several peacocks, were amazing.
We finally visited the Bharachukki waterfall at about 10:45 am. There was very little water flowing as it was summer time and a few weeks before the onset of monsoon rains; and the place at that moment had only a few.. 70-100 people visiting.
We left at 11:05 am from Bharachukki waterfall to The Bluff Shivanasamudra, to see the Gaganchukki waterfall for the first time. We had not visited that spot during our previous two trips.
Gaganchukki is located just the other side of this cliff by a short line of sight distance; however the road access is about 15 km (route map here), and we reached by 1h 15m, including a 15 min stop in the old town and the power house area to look at those stunning old structure of the power house building from behind (they do not allow inside), a banyan tree, the old houses there, the nice township kind of road, a solar power farm, etc.
At Gaganchukki also water flowing was too little and the visitor crowd was very little. After spending about 20 min. there, we left at about 12:50 and reached Somanathpur by 1:50 pm, covering the 41 km distance (map here) in an hour.The ticket issuing system at the Shri Chennakeshava Swami Temple had an odd online form filling, including ID card details, etc. We spent about 45 min at the ancient temple looking at the wonderful sculptures and architecture. To cover for lunch, we had fresh sugarcane juice and tender coconut at about 2:45 pm.
En route to Bangalore, we stopped for 25 min. at Maddur Tiffanys for a late lunch at 4:40 pm; reached Bangalore by 6:50 pm, covering the 145 km distance (route map here) in about 3h 45m, including the 25 min. late lunch stop.
Scroll to see more pictures below; and also our Verdict about the whole trip.. at the end of this below.
