Ballalaraya fort to Bandaje

Side view of the Bandaje falls

     I'm writing this trek report after a gap of 7 years. So, whatever I'm writing is from the bottom of my memory. Some moments are still fresh in my mind since it was my first trek with Ravi & team. I never attempted to write down my experiences before, because I was not good at writing in English. I'm not an expert even now, but still want to write down my thoughts for my daughters, who might read it in future, and know about my interests and experiences.

     We went to Horanadu temple, and then hired a jeep to drop us to Sunksale. We walked few kilometers and reached a bungalow at the foot of the hill. It was around noon, and we finished our packed lunch quickly. I had kept a pack of curd and knife in the same pouch in my backpack. To my bad luck, the curd packet had swollen overnight, and the knife had pierced it ruining my bag. I washed my bag with the fountain water, and rearranged

We had lunch here on the first day

things. We started our trek around 2'O clock, and we followed the ruins of fort wall, as suggested by some other's trip report. It was a steep ascend, and for a first timer like me it was a hell like feeling. I was thinking, why did I come here to climb, putting all my well grown organs to difficult test. In fact, I had not carried anything in that trek. My back pack was as light as feather, compared to others who were carrying their sleeping bags & tents. On the way, shot some orchids, and some wild flowers. There were interesting insects also, but could not photograph them, due to bad light inside the forest. We were supposed to cross a stream after few hours of walking, if we had followed the proper trail. Unfortunately, we lost the trial and couldn't figure out where to go. The Ballalaraya fort was clearly visible to us, and that was our destination. So without thinking too much, we started climbing the hill straight towards the fort. It was a steep 85 degree climb and by evening 4'O clock, we were at the fort. It was a spectacular view of the western ghats from that fort. 

View of Western Ghats

     After clicking some photos there, we started walking towards Bandaje falls. I got to know from Ravi that, it was his second attempt to reach Bandaje and in his first attempt he lost the trail and could not complete. Gosh! my heart started pounding! What is the guarantee that we find the path this time?, what if we don't reach Dharmasthala in time tomorrow? All we were told by Ravi is to trek towards south to reach the falls. It wasn't a time to think as we had to walk very long distance. We decided to walk and walk till it gets dark, and then camp. After an hour of walking or so, we found a flat place, and pitched our tents. It was again first time experience for me, to sleep in tents on top of a mountain, with no one around except darkness and silence. Thought of wild animals especially elephants came to my mind, and I shivered once. Lights from a distant village was visible from there, and we discussed to somehow

View of Western Ghats

reach that village, if we don't get any other trail. We discussed strategy for next day, and one thing was very clear. We have to go only in south direction. I & Nataraj checked in to one of the royal cottages we had setup. Nataraj got sleep very quickly and started snoring. I wasn't feeling comfortable because of my wild thoughts, and slowly got sleep. Around 2 or 3 AM in the morning, I woke up to the sound of some grazing animal. I decided in mind that it is some Elephant or a wild boar, and I started carefully listening the movements. I shook Nataraj, and whispered, "saar, it seems some animal is there outside !!". He was least bothered, and said - "Its okay saar, sleep. Lets see in the morning". Rama !!, I started praying to all my known gods and slipped into sleep. 

Our Royal Cottage

When I woke up & looked around, it was like sea of milk. In our mythology, we read that Lord Vishnu sleeps on "Shesha", the serpent king in the middle of "Ksheera samudra". For a moment I felt, is this the one called us "Ksheera samudra" ? I looked around for signs of elephant dung, but couldn't find any. We packed our tents and started walking southwards. From the fort, we were walking always on the top of the mountain, so that was an easy walk. After walking an hour or so, we hit a valley, and had to cross it. After this, we started descending, and we could feel we are on right track, and could hear a water stream. We thought that must be the falls. Near the stream, we finished our breakfast and we had to cross the stream, but there were no proper trail to climb to other side. So, we walked in the stream for a furlong or so, then we heard noise of chopping a tree. We yelled in that direction. Few minutes later, few forest guards came looking for us, and they lead us to

Forest guards who helped us

the top of the falls. It was around 3'O clock, and we spent few minutes at the falls and started descending. The guards showed us the trail leading to Mundaje village, and that would take another 2-3 hours to reach there. While getting down through the grass land, we got beautiful side view of the falls, as seen in the first image. Then we entered the forest, and walked for some more time but still signs of civilization wasn't visible. It was getting dark, and we didn't have proper torches. There were lot of leech bites, but I ignored all of them, and was literally running towards the village. Few in our group were walking

Nataraj, finding a direct path to the base

very slowly, and chances of them reaching village before dark was feeble. It was me and Vijeth I guess, who reached the village first and asked for help. I think it was Babu Naik's house. The villagers were very kind and they sent 2 people looking for the rest of the group. By around 7'O clock, all came down, and we spent some time removing the leeches and cleaning. We asked for a Jeep to drop us to Dharmastala, and we could catch the bus right in time. It was a memorable first trip for me. I was initially thinking not to come for any another trek but after completing this trek, decided to join gym and be fit to climb. 

     After few years, I did Bandaje trek once again. More on that later :).