Well, I'm back from yet another trek in the western ghats. This time it is inside Mookambika wildlife sanctuary, yes Arishinagundi waterfalls. But, why is this first attempt ? Read on.
We have a WhatsApp & Facebook group called Crazy-Hikers, and discuss about our future treks, and trek plans. From last October, the group was almost inactive and none of my plans to motivate the group members worked out. I and Prabin decided to abandon this group and go for a trek with Bangalore Ascenders or BMC. As a final attempt, I initiated a one day trek to Arishinagundi falls. I & Prabin had decided to go even if we get one more member or none. To our surprise, we got 14 more interested in this trek! From my past experience, I know the pain points in booking Bus tickets for a large group. Lots of cancellations and re-bookings. Ah! I hate that. So, I searched for a non-ac sleeper bus to Kollur and back & finalized a VRL bus. I'm repenting that choice of mine even now (Why ? will tell you shortly). Sorry friends, I did a mistake. I then communicated that bus timings in the group and asked those who are interested to book tickets for themselves. That was a great move indeed :). The bus was scheduled to leave from Yeshwanthpur at 21:40. For the first time in my travel history, I could exactly plan and make it to Yeshwanthpur before the departure time. Thanks to BMRCL, Metro train :). All sixteen of us were on board before 21:45 hrs. After a quick exchange of information, I slept while others continued to chat. Around 4'O clock, the driver started shouting - "those who want to get down for Mangalore can get down". I was thinking, perhaps Shimoga has come, so the driver is asking to get down and catch Mangalore bus. I started looking outside the window anticipating any familiar building or road in Shimoga. It took a while to realize that we are not in Shimoga but actually in Mangalore itself. Oh My goodness !! I pinched myself to confirm that I'm awake and checked google maps on my phone. By then, Udupi had arrived. Manipal, Brahmavara, Kundapura all coastal towns passed. It was like a "Karavali Darshan" tour. Never, I imagined one can go to Kollur taking this extra long route. I should have paid attention when the journey time was given as 10 hrs.
We reached Kollur by morning 7:30. We checked in to a low cost hotel just in-front of the temple, and after all the "morning raaga" and bath, visited the Sri Mookambika temple. Temple was little crowded due to weekend, and there were lot of tourists from Kerala. The Keralites believe in the goddess very much and they visit the temple very often. You can see the influence of Kerala architecture in the temple complex. One of the locals expressed his concern over few Malayalis holding key posts in the temple administration, and becoming temple priests. Anyways these discussions are out of scope for this blog. After temple visit, we came back to room and decided to retain one room and dump all our extra luggage. We had breakfast at "Mahalakshmi Restaurant" and then visited the forest office to pay the entry fee. At first, the forest officer (Vivek) declined my request for entry to falls. But, I had already spoken to the RFO, Mr Siddeshwar and sought his permission, so he took 100 Rs per head entry fee and gave receipt. He reiterated again that the trail is very slippery, and fallen trees have blocked the road and we have to make our own path. It was around 10:30am, and he said that he cannot arrange a guide now, and we have to find way on our own. He suggested to take auto to the forest gate which is around 2 kms and described that for 4 kms inside the forest there is a jeep track, and then a steep descent of 1 km to get to the falls. Usually, I save the co-ordinates of the destination and keep google map ready, but since this was supposed to be a guided trek, I did not bother much. We took four autos to drop us to the forest gate. After initial photo session, we started walking inside the forest. It was a very cloudy day, and the accuweather & google weather had suggested rains with thunder-storms. So, I was fully prepared to take on any kind of shower. Rain pant, jacket, Gum-boots besides Umbrella, I was all set to walk in rain, in fact to walk only in the rain. Initial few minutes of the trek was easy, as it was nearly flat, but after crossing the first stream, it was only ascending and ascending. We walked for almost an hour, but no signs of waterfall. Due to the water-proof jacket & pant, I was sweating heavily from inside causing dehydration. I felt like walking in rain would have been better, than protecting myself. On an average we walk approximately 2km/hour, and we had come less than half way. We walked for few more minutes, again ascending and saw a falls on a distant hill. God ! It would be easily 9 to 10 kms if that is our destination, I uttered to myself. There was no sign of the board at which we had to descend to the falls. I and Prakash discussed to give up this trek, and try next time with a guide. But as usual, Ravi and Laxmi were not ready to give up, and pushed entire team to walk further. Exactly after two hours of walking, which means we had covered 4 kms, we saw the board showing directions to falls. I was very happy to see the board in the first place, and started descending using the narrow trail. After some 15-20 minutes, we reached a very small water falls, and a trail was visible after crossing this. I & Ravi, went little ahead and hit another falls. After crossing this, Ravi went ahead to find that trail is going up again. I don't know, if we had continued, we could have hit our destination or not. It was already 13:30 Hrs, my exhaustion and the thought that we have to be out of forest before 5'O clock did not allow me to explore further. At least, I was not ready to go forward and so said no when Ravi asked if we need to continue. Others also did not show interest in continuing, but were happy playing in the small water fall. We started back journey by 2'O clock, and it was a continuous descent, and by 4'O clock we all were out of the forest.
You call it Luck or Bad-Luck, it did not rain once :). My belief that, "Expected things don't happen when you are prepared for the worst" was proved right once again. Except the morning breakfast, we did not eat anything, except few chocolates & fried items. After coming back to the hotel, we hired rooms for few more hours, to freshen up. Our bus was at 7:30pm, so finished early dinner at Hotel Akshaya, and boarded the bus. So, this is my first attempt story to Arishinagundi falls. If I maintain good health, and my crazy-hikers active then surely will go back to this falls post monsoon.
I had packed my Camera, ND filters in a nice plastic wrap, and I bring them back unopened. For the first time, I have come back taking no photos. Very bad! So, will update this blog with mobile clicks from others, so stay tuned.. :)
Good night !!
Crazy-Hikers:- Ravi, Sangeeta, Karthik, Roopa, Indrani, Laxminarayana, Prabin, Prabhat, Debashish, Kotresh, Rakesh, Kishore, Akash, Kavitha, Prakash and Sharma.
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