Malenadu Monsoon Drive 2021 – Day 1
Day 1 (460 + 210 kms) : Malaprabha, Mahadayi, Kalinadi catchments
After a long hiatus – a refreshing drive through rains.
As always, we try to reach the NH4 exit to our drive circuit always by wee hours, this time pleasant rains gave company all the way from Bangalore, thanks to the strong activity in West Coast.
After the early morning stop, we started post Dawn from Dharwad. We wanted to visit the ghats of Belgaum(the area close to MH type green landscapes) as we have been missing MH drives since 2019. There are lot of beautiful circuits in this area and adjoining MH-Goa, but we did not want to cross state border. We also planned in such a way that we visit this region in a weekday so as to absolutely avoid any crowd.
The landscape was green all the way even before exiting the NH at Kittur, rain bands increased as we moved westwards. After quick breakfast in Khanapur, we drove across to Malaprabha and Mahadayi catchment areas of Kanakumbi – one of the rainiest areas of Karnataka. Malaprabha river was gushing across Khanapur and Jamboti.
There are a lot of streams which join the Mahadayi river gushing down to the Goa plains from the ghats – one such place which we visited is Chikhale waterfalls, serene place with rolling grasslands. and so many river streams, it also has a milestone to demarcate Karnataka and Goa.
After this detour, we moved towards Kanakumbi town and the famous Mauli Devi temple – which is said to be the birthplace of Malaprabha river – also has a beautiful pond. There was no one around when we reached there. The last part of this circuit was an area just north of Kanakumbi – few kms ahead, vast areas of grasslands and water streams decorating the Monsoon landscape – took us back to the MH days. And as expected, the heaviest of rains of the day we faced were in this area.
We drove back to Khanapur for Lunch and then crossed over into Uttara Kannada district from Belgaum towards our stay, ofcourse with a detour, but this time to avoid the work in progress stretch to Ramnagar. Our stay chosen was for its wonderful location – in between Castlerock and Jagalbet, also the catchments of Kalinadi tributaries flowing into Supa Reservoir.
After reaching the stay before dusk, we spent rest of the evening watching rain bands pour the area from the hills in the background. The rains poured through the night..
