If you are planning for a wildlife tour package of Satpura national park then you need to do its planning in advance. While doing the trip planning, you will realize that here resorts are located at different locations, close to different safari gates. At this national park, three major safari gates where popular stay options are available are Madhai gate, Bheemkund gate and Panaarpani gate. They are approx 100 km apart from each other.
Madhai gate allows access to Madhai zone, Bheemkund gate allows easy access to 2 important safari zones i.e. Bheemkund zone and Mallupura zone. Similarly Panaarpani zone allows access to Panaarpani safari zone. It is internal management of park authority to take decisions as per ground conditions. Here we will try to understand the difference between Turia gate and Karmajhiri gate in which will cover information about these gates, stay options, both the safar zone wildlife sighting experience, accessibility etc. All these factors contributes in decision making.
| Features | Madhai Gate | Bheemkund Gate |
| Popularity | Madhai gate is more popular as it was older gate. | Bheemkund gate is comparatively less popular. |
| Tiger sighting | Madhai zone offers tiger sighting but in compare to Bheemkund zone forest, here tracking is slightly challenging. | Bheemkund zone offers 2 core zone safaris i.e. Mallupura zone and Bheemkund zone. Collectively they offer some better tiger sighting chances than Madhai zone. |
| Terrain | Madhai gate forest is more scenic and hilly than Bheemkund zone forest area. | Bheemkund gate surrounding terrain is more plain with some lofty hillys like Gutti baba point. |
| Water Presence | Madhai gate area have Tawa dam backwater with Denwa and Sahastradhara rivers thus water presence is better. | This gate have Tawa river and some seasonal rivers presence but no backwater advantage thus slightly dry and rocky region. |
| Human Disturbance | Madhai gate have natural boundary of Denwa river which helps to reduce human disturbance and reduces villlagers intrusion | Bheemkund gate have more plain landscape with porous boundary due to which villages are more close to safari areas. These conditions increases more human disturbance factor and security threat to animals. |
| Stay Options | As Madhai gate is older safari gate thus resorts came here first. Still this gate offers all budget category of stay options thus more suitable for visitors. | Bheemkund gate was developed later on and safari vehicle count is also less. Due to this here getting safari vehicle is not easy. Considering these challenges, here stay options are limited and more costly. |
| Accessibility | Madhai gate is easily accessible from places like Bhopal airport, Jabalpur airport, Bandhavgarh national park, Kanha national park, Pachmarhi. | Bheemkund gate is easily accessible from places like Nagpur airport, Bhopal airport, Indore airport, Tadoba national park. |
| Crowd | Madhai gate will be comparatively more crowded. | Bheemkund gate will be less crowded. |
| Safari Permits Quota | Madhai gate have more safari permits quota. | Bheemkund gate (along with Mallupura zone) have comparatively less safari permits quota. |
| Zones accessibility | Madhai gate is suitable for visiting Madhai zone, Parsapani zone and Jamani Dev zone. | Bheemkund gate is good for Bheemkund zone and Mallupura zone safaris. |
| Animals Sighting | Madhai gate is good for Sloth Bears, Leopards, Tigers, Sambar deer, Indian Gaurs, Giant Indian Squirrel, Wild Dogs, Barking Deer | Bheemkund gate forest area is good for Tigers, Black Bucks, Spotted Deer, Wild Dogs, Leopards, Flying Squirrels. |
| Birding | Due to presence of backwater and islands, Madhai gate offers better chance for bird watching. | This forest is also good for birdings in winters with better sighting of predator birds. |
| Safari Activities | Madhai gate offers more safari activities like jeep safari, walking safari, boat safari, cannoe rides. | Bheemkund gate mainly relies on jeep safaris. |
| Best time to visit | It is good in all seasons with healthy animals presence, more activitries and greenry due to better water presence. | It is good from November to March i.e. till winters. It has been noticed that summer leads to deer species migration towards Madhai forest, due to better water presence thus during summers, we may feel forest is abandoned. |
Both Madhai gate and Bheemkund gate have their own advantages and challenges. As per our priorities we can choose in between them or if we have more time then cover both the safari gates to get collective experiences.
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