For a river that's so woven into the fabric of Coorg, there's precious little you see of the Cauvery. It leaps down from its perch at Talakaveri on Brahmagiri and disappears, only to reappear like a divine goddess at Bhagamandala, where it meets the Kannike and the invisible Sujyothi. The descent breaks up the stream into tributaries that form such a lattice of rivulets, it could teach FMCG companies a thing or two about distribution. It is this network of veins that breathes life into Coorg, making it a living, pulsating organism. While nearly every estate has its own stream or waterfall, the main river silently slides through a thick forest cover, unnoticed. If it weren't for the bridge after Kushalnagar, you wouldn't even know it existed.
But the river runs almost parallel to an 18-km backlane that connects Gudde hosur to the Madikeri-Siddapur Road. This unexplored stretch of the Cauvery, hemmed in by the Dubare Reserve Forest and the road, is one of the best riverside jaunts in Coorg. So hopelessly exposed, the river is forced to disgorge its little known treasures... the glint of a mahseer's scales, the frolicking of elephants, the splash of blue of a white-throated kingfisher, the childish gurgle of the river and the dull dwoop of a wild mango falling into the river before being swept away.
For a special glimpse of the Cauvery River in glorious naked beauty, catch her unawares in Dubare.