Mekedatu (Goats Leap) is very good picnic spot for Bangalore people. Located in Cauvery Wild life sanctuary which is home for elephants, leopards and so many wild animals
Route from Bangalore: Take kankapura road from Bangalore. Need to take left turn after kankapura.
My Experience:
My room mate Hemanth was interested to go some where near Bangalore. I wanted to go to mekedatu since it is close to Bangalore and more ever it is one day trip. Surprisingly this time my other room mates were also interested to come to this place . Initially we planned to go by bikes, but morning before we start it started raining. Plan was changed I booked a taxi from Geo travels.
We were late by two hours because of rain. Finally we started at 8:30.
We reached sangama (Place where Arkavathi and Cauvery joins) by 11:15. The weather was good and cloudy and it was not raining. We had To cross the river to go to mekadatu from sangama. This is easy to cross in summers, but it was rainy season and river was in full flow. We have to hire Coracle to cross the river. We hired a coracle and crossed the river. Other side is Cauvery wildlife sanctuary. This sanctuary is home for wild animals specially for Asian elephants. From this point Mekedatu is three km. There is private mini bus available from this point to Mekedatu.
We decided go by bus and while coming back we thought we could walk the three km stretch. We reached mekedatu very good place and added to that river in full flow. We spent some time there by talking some photos and discussing about the area.
This place is dangerous for two reasons one reason is that the river has sharp rocks in ground and second is that this place has crocodiles. Never try to swim in this river.
The interesting thing is that we saw elephants dropping every where while coming back. We had seen fresh elephants pug-marks. I told the guys that we have great chance to see wild elephants here. Surprisingly I found a herd of elephants near to the road. I warned everybody not to talk loudly. Everybody was surprised to see wild elephants. We had safe distance from elephants, in case elephant attacks we could easily escape.
He was shooting elephants with his video camera. I was trying to take photographs with my SLR with 300mm zoom lens. We were silently observing the elephants. The mini bus was passing by and people in mini bus shouted seeing elephants. One elephant looked at our side started running towards us. We stared running and went some extent. Elephant stopped Chasing us. This is the one danger here but surprisingly there were no warning boards about elephants here. Anyway important thing to remember is elephant is most dangerous animal in India. Always maintain safe distance if want to take photographs. but never take photographs with flash. Generally elephant get irritated by flash. People have false impression that elephant is soft animal and can’t run fast. This is wrong assumption!.
We went to chunchi falls spent some time there. We started back to Bangalore by five clock in the evening.
But seeing elephant in wild is good experience and at the same time it is very scary.
We reached Bangalore by evening 7:30.
Other information:
Route from Bangalore: Take kankapura road from Bangalore. Need to take left turn after kankapura.
This is very good one day trip from Bangalore. You can visit this place from Cauvery Fishing camp in case if you stay in Jungle lodges and resorts