Rambling around Nature: bhadra

Sand Plovers at Varca beach, Goa

This post is only partly a nature related one and mostly about a road trip. Intrigued? Read on.

We have owned an EV (Electric vehicle) since 2008. Starting with REVAi. Then E2o which became Mahindra E2o. Sold it after it was discontinued and chose Tata Tiago which is our commute car now. We have never ventured out of Bangalore in it. So, when a friend asked to join on a road trip to Goa in his new MG ZS EV, we hopped on eagerly to experience an EV road trip. Our friend being the organized planner that he is had all the charging schedule worked out. We could sit back and enjoy the ride with hopefully no need to push the car anywhere.

Nature of course is everywhere. On this trip we stopped for one night each at Sharavathi Jungle Lodges and Bhadra River Tern resort to enjoy those wonderful places as well as for charging, with 3 nights at Mahindra Varca, Goa in between.

Zeon Charging near Hiriyur

Somewhere on NH4

Our EV road trip got under way at Yeshwantpur Metro Station where we were picked up. First stop was Sharavathi Jungle Lodges about 400+ kms away. For ZS, company claims range of 460km, user experience is 350km. With 4 people and AC, we hoped for 300km. This meant at least one recharge was needed. To be safe, he had targeted 3 charging stations though only one was sufficient. But given the unreliability of car charging infrastructure, this was a planned redundancy. Zeon charging station at Hiriyur, next to Paakshala restaurant worked out perfectly for our first stop. The car charged while we had a nice breakfast. We did a short test charge up at a roadside Tata Charging Station.

Lunch and charge at Harsha the Fern

One more charging stop at Harsha the Fern hotel in Shivamogga, which had charging infrastructure in house making it easy to have lunch while the car was charging. Here, there was a slight issue as both slots were already taken. On enquiry, one of the cars was the Hotel Owners! Thankfully, he took it out on request to let us plug in ours.

Malabar Pit Viper

Boat Safari

We reached Sharavati JLR by late afternoon. After checkin, we sighted a Rouxi Forest Lizard and Malabar Pit Viper (yellow morph) which was perched on a log under a bridge on way to our cottages patiently waiting for prey. The viper interestingly stayed in that same spot and position during our whole stay! We took the evening boat safari which turned out to be a sunset cruise with no nature sightings. Next day morning was a safari to jog fall view points which enabled us to do some good bird watching (check list below). Charging attempt overnight with some adhoc (jugaad) setup did not succeed. So, redundancy in charging paid off.

We headed out after breakfast and charged at a convenient charging station located alongside Hotel Sagar Residency, Honnavar while we had coffee. After lunch at Karwar, we reached Varca late evening with a stop along the way to see the sunset. At varca, the charging situation became easy. Even though the fast charger at the resort was not working, we could have car charged overnight with the regular slow charging plug point.

Morning beach walk Varca to Covalessim

Ocean surf

Early next morning, we did a nice relaxed walk all along the beach towards Cavelossim about 5 kms south of Varca. It was reminiscent of my

Sand Plover

longer beach walk and was equally enjoyable though shorter. Other activites were a visit to Sao Jacinto Islands, eating out at Martins Corner and beach shacks, bit of ocean surf, and generally chilling Goa style. Birding wise, I found a flock of maybe 100 Lesser Sand plovers(or Greater), with few Great Knots and Sandpipers among them on the beach making it an amazing sighting.

Barking Deer

Bridge, River Tern

On our last day we left very early morning to reach River Tern JLR in time for their evening safari. Charging was again at Hotel Sagar Residency where we had our breakfast also. River Tern lodge is nicely nestled along Bhadra Forest and reservoir and hosts the River Tern which come to nest there during winter. We were about a month early though and only spotted couple of tern scouts. The evening boat Safari was still quite good with excellent sightings of a pair of perched darters and near miss of Tiger/Leopard sighting after waiting patiently when Langurs gave incessant alarm calls. Next day morning Jeep Safari was also good with sightings of Barking deer, Malabar Trogon, Forest Owlet, Lesser Adjutant, among others. We took advantage of their natural bay which was like a large pool to do some kayaking and swimming.

Finally, we headed back home and needed only one stop at Hiriyur at the same Zeon charging station and combined it with lunch at Paakshala, and reached home by late evening.

Summary of cost difference between Petrol(assumed) and Electric(actuals) car for this trip.

Petrol car: (~15KMPL) costs Rs 6.5 per KM (@100 Rs/litre)

Electric car: (6KM per KW): Rs 4 per KM (@25 Rs/KW Fast charging)

Links:

Photo album of the trip

Ebird Check List at Sharavati Jungle Lodges

Ebird Check List at Sao Jacinto Island, Goa

Ebird Check List at River Tern Lodge, Boating

Ebird Check List at River Tern Lodge, Safari

Zeon Charging Station, Hiriyur, next to Paakshala

Tata Charging before Chitradurga

Relux Charging, Harsha the Fern, Shivamogga