Gomatagiri – Dornahalli – Chunchanakatte Falls – Saligrama

This time we colleagues, Harish, Logesh, Prakash, Sivakumar, Sreelakshmi, Zayid & Me have decided to visit Gomatagiri, Dornahalli Church, Chunchanakatte Water Falls, Saligrama and KRS back waters.

As before, we have gathered near CSI Church and Hinkal, and waited for all to come. There was a special member in our tripping team, Anand, Son of Prakash. Though had planned to start at 9:30, it past 10 AM in execution 😛

Not even one of us were aware of the complete route, however we are sure on route till the first diversion, i.e. Yelwala, which is approx 14km from Mysore city.

The road from Yelwala was very good.

Have to take the left diversion at Gungralchatra, after 5km ride from the Yelwala diversion. The 3 way navigation boards were useful, though its visibility is less, and one should know to read Kannada 🙂

On the way, noticed two birds and stopped to take pics. Later identified them as Collard Dove and Laughing Dove (Thanks to Irvin Sebastian).

It was only me who stopped there to take pic and others had continued their journey. We continued and saw Siva and Zayid were waiting for us at next junction. Reached a 4 way junction and saw the sign board over there written in Kannada, none of us knew to read Kannada. As I had pic of previous sign board, I compared the direction text. But nothing were matching, then I used the trick of comparing first and last letters and we succeeded, Gomatagiri was just 0.5km from there 😀

Gommatagiri is about 20 km from Mysore and situated in Bilikere hobli of Hunsur taluk. This is an acclaimed Jain centre. The 700-year-old statue of Bahubali (also known as Gomateshwara) is erected atop a 50 meter tall hillock called ‘Shravana Gudda’. The statue of Gomateshwara at Gommatagiri is an early Vijayanagara creation in granite. It has serene facial expressions and curly hairs. This Jain centre attracts many pilgrims during the annual “Maha masthakabhisekha” in September. The local Jains have a belief that the entire region was a bastion of Jainism at least since the 2nd Century BC.

The view from the top is scenic, and it has got a small view point, where two people can stand. If you miss the grip, consider that you got free passport lol

A dragon fly was waiting over there to get few of it’s macro shots from the mobile macrographers in the team, Zayid and Logesh. 😀

Renovation works were taking place here, including new steps and steel parapet.

We had sprouts and boiled Brown Chick Peas (Kala Chana) which Prakash got from home. Logesh and Zayid were behind a Fire Ant (I suppose) to take a macro shot/video and Logesh was more than happy to get it’s bite, lol. As we were having no local guides or people having information on different buildings/constructions over here. However we have seen few constructions around, but didn’t explore those.

Anand was super excited and wanted his daddy to click his photos. I helped him, he gives nice poses, afterall, he is a Vijay Fan.

From the side, the Basadi was built on huge 2-3 rocks, or later it got cracks due to different reasons.

We continued the journey through the road Google had suggested earlier, ignoring the direction given by the workers here (they said road is not great, we must go to Hunsur road and take the main road which goes to KR Nagar).

Stopped near a Tamarind tree to pluck some and it was raw.

We saw a river and were lot of birds around. Later identified that we had stopped at Lakshmana Tirtha river where it meets KRS Back waters. Could see tomato farms on the bank of the river.

Saw a pelican for the first time and it was later identified as Spot-Billed Pelican.

When I walked away from the team, to take pics of birds, others continued taking pics, selfies macros etc. I could see kingfisher, an unknown one, whose pic I couldn’t get, Jungle Myna, Grey Heron, Red Wattled Lapwing, ducks etc.

Continued the journey after 20-30 minutes, I had noticed lot of banyan trees, tamarind trees on the road side, and was happy to see 🙂 KR Nagar, Krishnaraja Nagar is famous for paddy fields, and could realize it by seeing it on both sides of road.

Reached Dornahalli Church around 2PM, clicked few pics. (Quote below from the board displayed at Church)

This Holy Shrine began around 1800AD. This same land was the field of a farmer who was plowing this Raagi field struck the miraculous state of St. Anthony which was about one and half feat height. He took it to be a doll in spite of the warning given by St. Anthony in a dream. As a result he had to face many hardships. Again he was directed in a vision to build a shrine in this place. Then a small chapel was built for the miraculous state. The shrine was insufficient for the number of pilgrims flocked to obtain grace of God through St. Anthony. A fine church was erected in 1920, thanks to the generosity of a devout client of St. Anthony, the Late Mr. T. Dharmaraj Chetty, the then parish priest Rt. Rev. Msgr. IH Lobo, the former parish priest of Dornahalli began the construction of a new church in 1964. On 13th June, 1969 the new Church was consecrated by His Lordship Rt. Rev. Mathias Fernades.

Dilna & Sreelakshmi lit candles. There are two halls, and I am not sure why two halls were there.

A Spidy, Talamonia dimidiata had come to see us and Zayid was behind it to get a macro shot.

Took a groupie and continued to the “Zoo”.

The so called Zoo is a small farm, were they grow goats, turkey hen, Donkey, hen, different varieties of birds, tortoise, dove etc. I am not sure whether they are doing it legally or illegally (some of the birds were not suppose to be in a cage, like Scaly breasted munia).

Zayid pointed a Cocoon to me and it was damn beautiful. Later identified it as Cocoon of Indian Jezebel (Delias eucharis); Thanks to Girish Mohan PK. He informed me that the butterfly should be emerging in 4-5 days, and must be around 7-9 in the morning. It will stay freeze for another 30 minutes post emerging, he, a teacher cum butterfly watcher (isn’t correct?), has added.

All were hungry, Harish was damn hungry by the time we reached here 😀 Luckly, there was a canteen and they had enough food to fill our stomach. They also had non-veg items like Chicken fry, Egg Omlets etc. Rice Sambar costs around ₹25, Omlet ₹25 and half rice ₹15.

Prakash had tough time feeding Anand, and could convince him by offering chocolates, toffees etc 😀

Continued the journey and on the way could see a lot of birds on the electric line, didn’t stop as our main purpose is not bird watching 😉

Reached Krishnaraja Nagar aka KR Nagar, and took the picture of Welcome Board over there.

Reached Chunchanakatte Falls, and few Rose Ringed Parakeets welcomed us along with monkeys.

The view from the parking space was very nice and there are seats to watch the fall. The Rama Temple is at the bank of river.

I have taken few pics to get panoramic view of the fall and river, and I hope it has turned good.

Could see few family members were taking bath in the river base of the waterfall.

We took few pics from there and moved toward the water fall.

Meanwhile I took pics of the temple as well.

 

We were self instructed not to get into water as it is dangerous there.

I suppose it is a caution notice!

Could see another family taking pics at the base of the waterfall, closer.

 

Dilna was so happy as this is the first waterfall she has ever seen!

The water flowing here got slighly yellow-greenish and it is believed that Sita Devi had taken bath here applying turmeric powder and the color still goes there. Sorry, strictly no cross questioning.

Also tried taking a panorama of falls.

Continued to Saligrama and decided to cancel KRS backwaters (come on, we have already covered it unknowingly as a concept). Before the falls, there is a check dam and different canals were made to supply water to the fields.

The sunet mode pic I took from the bridge, has undergone HDR filter and resulted into this.

Also did a try for Panorama.

A monkey came near us while taking pics and it stopped near each bike and gave pose for photo (we felt) for 10-15 secs. I think, they came to get some food from us. Sorry bro, we wont do that!

Initially planned to visit the Sri Yoganarasimha Swamy temple and return home. But when we reached there the temple was not open for the evening pooja.

Just from the temple the condition of road goes bad. Got to know that there are few Jain basadis in 1-1.5km, and then we moved there.

At Saligrama, here are 3+ Jain Basadis available, hence I suppose there should be more Jains over here.

Pete Ananathanatha Swamy Digambar Jain Basadi

This place looked like decades old, though we get 4G signals for Airtel and Jio!

Ancient Shri 1008 Bhagwan Neminath Digambar Jain Basadi

We wanted to have some strong coffee/tea and were searching for one in the street.

Saligrama Street

1008 Shri Parshwanth Digambar Jain Basadi

Saw one hotel, an old style one and ordered 1 Tea, 2 Milk & 6 Coffee.

Surprisingly, they charged only ₹6/item, where in Mysore it would have been min 10! Wow!

Returned quickly, decided to visit Narasimha Swamy temple and return home.

Were discussing about the “unused tripod” during tea time. When we reached the temple, it was decorated with lights, and I decided to make use of tripod, as it was dark then. Took few pics of pillar and stitched it.

Then I did some experiment with long exposure and front/rear curtain flash settings over there, and took the last groupie of the day.

On the way back, visited colleague Lakshmi @ Yelwala; who had promised to prepare some food for us, and we demanded Pani Puri on previous day. Spent some time over there and had fun! Thank you Lakshmi (PS: As you had requested, not publishing the photo of yours preparing Pani Puri, mind it 🙂 😛 )