Sunday Photos: Shimmering

My parent follows the custom of visiting a nearby temple before starting a long journey. Here, every street end or corner has a temple for Lord Ganesh the most and they chose to break coconut and pray at the shrine before we move. At our street there’s a small temple called Sri Valampuri Cithi Vinayagar temple and it has been their starting point for last few years following our shifting to the native area.

It was about 6.30 am when we started our trip to Nilgiris at the beginning of this month and as usual the car stopped in front of the temple and my dad and uncle get down to offer their prayer and right behind us the sun was raising up and the light just falls on the temple and across the sanctum, which inspired me to take the cam and shot at the glowing sight. I zoomed on the sanctum and quite impressed with the sunlight expose over the black sculpture of Lord Ganesh with the gold coated arch behind the idol makes it shimmering.

I have captured this temple few times before with the mobile during the evening walk, but this was a great chance to shoot with the morning sunlight. I am not a morning person and I wake up usually only by 8 am and only during the travel I wake up early or sleepless thinking about the travel, facing the morning sunlight is a delight I cherish until I get to face the same. 

Yellow Daisy-like Flowers

The Euryops daisy is a large perennial bush that bloom all season long or until cold temperatures appear with yellow daisy-like flowers. Euryops is a member of sunflower family, native mostly to rocky sites in southern African, but the photos were captured at Coonoor while detour around the hill station in the Nilgiri.

Euryops pectinatus is a vigorous evergreen shrub that grows up to 5 feet tall and wide, with silvery green, hairy leaves and yellow, daisy-like composite flowers; they bloom from early summer to autumn. The bush grows best in full sun and well drained deep soils, but need moist. The images were shot during evening sunlight. 

Linking this post for Floral Friday Foto 

Bid adieu

A farewell of love

or dispatch on a mission
kiss clings to bosom

ps. the haiku  was inspired by the photo i came across in Instagram

Sunday Photos: Palavakkam Beach

I was at the Palavakkam beach in the neighbourhood today evening with my cousin and got to click some photos with mobile. The day was very hot and being Sunday and summer holidays to kids the beach was unusually crowded and I could see people come as groups of families with boys playing beach crickets around.  

I was also greeted by nice blue sky and simple sunset

Fence across Golf Course

The photos were actually focused on the scene behind the fence, the Ooty golf course and fog making way through mountains and trees, but the fence was taller than our car to prevent interruption. The images were captured on the Old Pykara Rd that lead one side of the golf course and I have been on this road earlier and I like the serenity and with tall trees of eucalyptus and pine it always remains cool.

The road is entirely scenic and I find many yellow flowers in this area which has some education institutions and the popular Ooty Gymkhana Golf Club also reside on this road. I heard bison’s (Indian guar) are often spotted here, though I find some people taking walk on the road without any fear as it was evening by then. At the end of the road we explored a beautiful temple little further from the main road, which I will post on later. 

Linking this post for  Good Fences by Gosia 

A brief on my travel to Nilgiris

Kodiveri dam-falls, created by carving 20 foot wall of rock in 1125 AD

One week has passed since I came back from my travel to Nilgiris aka Ooty and its surroundings and it was about 2am when we reached home on Sunday (April 9). Begin on 3^rd April morning; we reached Kodiveri waterfalls by evening traveling about 450 km from Chennai via Salem ‘n’ Bhavani. It was very hot day and as we move close to Salem it turned terrific hot. Even the AC car couldn’t keep heat away completely and only thinking that we delayed the drive back home by wandering on hills until 2pm and leisurely dropped via Mettur ‘n’ Krishnagiri. I know the state has been going through historic drought but I still had hope there should be some water flow at Kodiveri falls come dam. And yes, there’s water more than what I expected and that surprise continued to flow throughout my travel.

The interior of our room

Though there were few disappointments when we tried to venture certain areas that I want to explore but the journey doesn’t went that way rather unexpected routes and doors opened for me. We had a comfort stay at the Nilgiris and just outside the Ooty town, called as Funcity, the area has handful of homestays and resorts but still quite calm always. Half a km inside from the Ooty-Coonoor main road, the couple of rooms we booked for 4 days (for 6 people) had beautiful views from the balcony overlooking the Elk Hill and fields of carrot and greenhouses. The interior of the rooms are very neat and spacious enough for 3 per room and well lit by led lamps. The travel wasn’t hurriedly and we moved around leisurely checking couple of places in Ooty and Coonoor apart a long drive to Upper Bhavani.

The view  from our balcony overlooking  Elk Hill

It was a long-time dream for me to check Upper Bhavani Dam. I have been to the backwater area of the Upper Bhavani (in 2011) traveling through the Avalanche forest and it was a great experience and sheer pleasure to venture the wilderness. Then, we had permission to drive up to Upper Bhavani dam but we turned back halfway as my parents hesitated to go deep into the wild forest. But that time visiting the dam doesn’t need permission to go via Kundha, which we tried this time and went up to forest check post and turned back as we denied entering the dam area due to the restriction  since some antisocial intruded the forest. When we tried to check the Pilloor Dam, while driving up to Ooty on the unusual road, we faced the same and the 3 check post we crossed had the photos on antisocial to mark the seriousness as well as warning.

A post shared by Jeevan Kumar (@jeevan.grp) on Apr 10, 2017 at 10:14am PDT

Tea plantations  and  pristine mountains  behind

By this travel I have covered the western side of the Nilgiris to the most but I still want to go there again sometime because the wealth of nature is abundant there and words could not describe the pristine I admire there. So far I haven’t written about the western catchment of Nilgiris and I believe people who are truly interested will seek information on available, alike me. And it is a great natural source of Tamil Nadu which needs to be preserved seriously and the forest officials are doing their best. Our stay at Sathiyamangalam, before heading to Ooty, was very convenient and guest house was spacious and disable friendly where I could come around the beautiful house in my wheelchair. Located on the bank of Bhavani River and canopy of trees create cool ambiance with birds frequent around.

@ Sathiyamangalam guest house

Look forward for more on my travel... decided to make many posts out of it

Off to Blue Mountain

 

The couple of beautiful views were shot from Doddabetta Peak - the 2nd tallest peak of south india, in Ooty, during my previous visit to Nilgiris aka Blue Mountain, which gonna be my terrain for next one week.