December 28, 2023

Thursday, 11:30 PM

Balaji Cottage, Hasanur,
Tamil Nadu, India

Our next tiger reserve is Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in District Erode of Tamil Nadu, and with that we’ll be taking ATR to Tamil Nadu from Karnataka. So we left Ooty for Hasanur, which is where we are staying on our visit to Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve. The way was long and beautiful with lots and lots of tea estates on the way. We stopped at a few places and shot the tea-plucking process on the way. We also took a few drone shots that do look amazing, as you will see when those clips get uploaded. 

We are staying at Hasanur, which is about an hour’s drive from Sathyamangalam and we would have preferred to stay closer than this, had there been an option. But there is no place to stay anywhere closer to the reserve than this. Where we are staying is barely alright for an overnight stay, but we have no option other than to make do with this. Furthermore, even if there are some places to stay closer to the reserve, we have no idea about it. So instead of going around looking for a place to stay without knowing much, we decided to stay here itself. 

An IPS officer lent some help with arranging a safari at Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve for tomorrow, for which we are very grateful to the officer. We haven’t eaten dinner because we did not get much on the way, and we are also dead tired from the long travel, which is pretty much all what we did today.