Beautiful Rappa

We dream of estates and sprawling farmhouses. Dogs gamboling about in the background. Long walks. The works.
Last weekend we saw a place that came very close to our dreams. RAPPA. This is an eco-lodge about 25-30km away from Hassan. This was a trip we’d been planning since last year and for some reason or the other it never happened. For us when we started from Bangalore, there were no expectations. The only plus point as we saw it was that the guy who ran this place was very enthu about us bringing Cocoa. He’d told us laughingly “I’ve 3 dogs of my own here.”
The first sight that greeted us were three dogs sitting patiently under a tree looking at the approaching Bolero. The BH parked the car and got out to inquire about the place, a small spitz(very similar to a Pomeranian) hopped into the car! I opened the door and a gorgeous Irish setter sniffed around me soon followed by a Basset Hound. Mowgli was surprised and a little scared. Cocoa was completely scared. She just looked out of the window at all these funny creatures around me. And then the star of the place ambled in. A HUGE golden retriever! Absolutely CUTE. It was so amazing. All these dogs, really friendly not jumping at you or anything. They are just curious about ‘who are these people?” types. We soon forced Cocoa out of the car and Voila! The usual sniffing, growling etc etc happened and then all five were off!
The place as such is very basic. If you are looking for luxury or even The Jungle Lodges kind of cottage, then this is not the place for you. You have only the necessities here. Tents/machans equipped with just a bed. There is no fan/table/chair etc. There is a small bathroom with running water next to the tent. And then there is space. A WHOLE LOT OF IT! To walk, run, play cricket/football, laze around whatever you wish. This is basically on the bank of a reservoir. So during the summers, the water levels have receeded and then you have all that land lying there. The entire church in the below picture gets submerged during the monsoons. All you can see is the bell tower!We played in the waters, did kayaking, went for early morning walks, late evening walks, generally just roamed about enjoying the place. Cocoa went wild on seeing so much of place for her to run. She swam for the first time in her life seeing the other dogs do it so effortlessly and took to it within 5 minutes. So we were taking turns kayaking and cocoa would swim along with us. They also organize midnight treks etc, but since Mowgli was there with us we opted out of those. The above snap is Mowgli with the dogs. From left, Shunti the spitz, Brown the Irish Setter, Shadow, the Basset Hound lying down and Cocoa's tail! And in the first snap, thats me and Milo the huge golden retriever.

It is a great place to unwind, to hang out with a bunch of friends. And it is definitely a place we are going back to again and again!!!