One week ago, at about this hour, we had camped in the premises of a lonely house somewhere in the jungles of the Western Ghats. Starting off from Bangalore on Friday night, we reached Gerusoppa, famous for the Jog Falls, and proceeded towards a lesser known water fall called "Dabbe Falls". Our walk started off from a village called "Hosagadde", and a walk of about 5km to Dabbe, the house, which would serve us as a base. This fall is in the land vicinity owned by the family at Dabbe, and so, gets its name. We dumped our baggage, and backpacks at the house, and began our descent to the water stream around 11 AM. OH MY!! what a descent!! at close to just 10degrees to the perpendicular, and the Heater hi above at nothing short of 303Kelvin, we began. Thanks to the shoots, and the areals of all the banyans, we somehow found a grip for ourselves. Lucky us, the Sun had flushed all the blood suckers into the ground. (But, let me tell you, not being bitten by a Leech, somehow does not complete any Trek.:( ) After a descent for almost 45min, and about 350 feet, we caught our first glimpse of the gorgeous falls. "She was adorable":) after all the risks we took. Descending another 100 feet in the next 10 min, we were at the foot of the falls. Though the summer had limited the water that was dropping down, it was one sight not to miss. If this were the beauty of the summer, I stood imagining what it would be like, in the monsoons. Other mates, who were way behind also came and joined us in admiring the falls. But then, we gave them very less time. We splashed into the waters, and had a massage, that no sauna anywhere in the world will be able to give you. Water splashing from a minimum height of 30feet (after hitting upon the rocks), was gushing on to us, releiving us of all the pains on our way down. After about an hour of massages, we decided to move on, and amazingly, most of us felt that the way up was much easier than the way down. Again, courtesy the areals and the shoots all along. But we were almost as bad as we were when we started. Tired, and exhausted, we had our lunch that we'e packed at Dabbe, and after resting for a while, moved on to our next destination-KaNooru Kote. The fort, is now only a relic of a once thriving city fort, and the jungle has taken over almost every where. We reached the fort the next day at about 10-30 AM, and from there on moved towards Gerusoppa, where we were to board our bus back home. This leg of our trek was not really as enthralling as the first leg, to the falls. It was more of a "Jungle Walk" downhill. But Mr.Helios seemed to have no mercy upon us poor trekkers. Though we walked in shade for a fair distance, the heat was draining us out of all body fluids, and more-so, after taking a detour, that led us a long way to Gerusoppa, and walking about 2 hours more than the conventional route, we were literally camping at every place we found water. (Actually, even those from sprinklers in a land so rich with streams and rivers. that was our plight that day.). Finally, we realized we had detoured, at a tea stall in Gerusoppa, where the shop owner told this. Reaching the Sharavati at 4:30, we had a looooong swim in the river, and one of the boat riders even accepted and showed us along the river stretch for a while. This was to be the end of our trek, but we realized, that we were actually a while away from the KSRTC bus stand... This gave us another task at hand, but luckily, we found a KSRTC bus that runs into the old city once every hour or so, and it took us to our bus-stop. After finding that we were not fortunate enough for a proper dinner, was had some Upma, and Maggi, which we got prepared from one lady at a mess beside the bus stop. (Oh, and yes, we taught her Maggi-making...:) ) Gobbling it up, we were just fractions of a minute early at the bus-stop to board the bus that was to take us back to Bangalore.
With all that happened, it was a totally different experience.
But for those, who plan to take up this trek, my sincere suggestion would be to drop KaNooru Kote. it is just a long jungle walk, with not much exitement in the end. :(
Oh yes, one last thing to tell you... please do this. We carried a thrash bag all along our trek, and had accumulated a nett garbage of about 4-5kgs. It was dispersed only outside the tea shop in Gerusoppa. We are more responsible for the Earth, than any generation that has treaded Earth, or ones that will, in future. for, it is we who are to decide the fate of MoEarth.
P.S: for all those who would have loved to see the beauty of the falls, and the exhausted faces of the concrete jungle, treading "JUNGLES", I'm extremely sorry. None of the photos I clicked this trek appear worthy enough to be published.
