The plan for this trip was started from 2 weekes back, this was all started by new office colleague (kesava ), there was last moment of cancelling the trip as two of them fall sick, till last moment we were deciding yes or no..at last somehow we managed that we will go no more second thoughts.
We had planned to go in KSRTC and booked the tickets from Bengaluru -Agumbe direct, the departure was at 2200hrs, we all met in the Majestic Bus Stand. We were amazed to see that the bus started at sharp 2200hrs without waiting, which was good change after a long time..they started to keep up the time.
We reached Agumbe around 6am, enquired about the place in the busstand hotel, they told that is it a walkable distance you all can walk it is hardly 3km. We also decided to walk and enjoy the climate..while we started to enter the road which leads to the Kalinga (ARRS) we were welcome by two stray dogs...and they escorted us in the right direction which was strange and nice ..as we were walking one dog used to be in the front and another was backing us. After walking for sometime we rested and enjoying the morning mist of Agumbe in the open area..and the dogs stopped waited till we start the walk. We walked and walked..there was no sign of any human being at all and no the could started to cover us, the dogs also left us from there and suddenly heavy rain started pouring and now we started to run...the road from here was fine, we saw a farm house and went inside and asked about the ARRS and that the was the place..:-) at last reached. We were soaking in water and it was still raining heavily, unpacked the things to check if the bags got wet in the rain and to make sure the cameras are safe. After half an hour the rain stopped and we talked to one of the co-ordinator and they explained our program for the day, they told us to roam around the place around and you can find many frogs, insects, if lucky find the snakes and they told us they will take us a night walk in the road which came as many things happen only in night like we can see the Scropions in night with the help of Ultra violet lights, where the scorpions glow in ultraviolet lights.
After lunch we walked around the camp with the help of co-ordinator and found some exciting falls and water stream and did some macro shots of insects, spiders, bugs, while seeing all these we were also donating blood to the wild (leeches started attacking us and were doing their work).
After roaming around and taking photos of the insects, flies, lizards and spiders the time was 1730..we checked on the night walk, they told us that they will start after the dinner and that would be around 2030. We had dinner and got prepared for the night walk. Outside the camp it was very dark and with lots of leeches and rain, the walk was to be remembered for long time.
When we all came out of the camp and joined the road...the photo shoot started with the Bucket mushrooms the walk was for more than 2hrs and ended with bicolored frog.
I really enjoyed the walk and shot some beautiful photos...snakes, frogs, lizards, mushorooms. But was not able to shot the scorpions in UV lights, i didnt belive that watching the scorpions in the night with UV lights is so beautiful. Our luck it didnt rain while we were on the night walk and we were able to photoshoot very nice photos.
From this trip, i really felt i really need to have a Macro Lens and flash gun is a must. This was my first photoshoot trip purely, i have done many trips but for the mean of photoshoot this is my first trip and i really enjoyed a lot and i was in the right place to start my photoshoot trip :-).
This was a awesome trip to be remembered for quiet long time.
