"Experience is gained by traveling around 'n' by reading books". But traveling is better option and riskier than the latter one....
Being students it's obvious to go for a trip... But we wanted to try something different,something which only few would prefer to do.... So we opted to trek... And thats how it began...."THE TREK ON WESTERN GHATS" . . . .
 |
| BRIDGE |
This is one of the most famous trekking spots in the Western Ghats through an abandoned railway track which connects Bangalore and Mangalore.The track has been repaired now and train runs twice a day along with some goods train.So be careful if you are planning to trek.
Sakleshpur is around 220kms from Bengaluru (Bangalore) and Donigal is 7kms further up in NH48. The railway track connects Hassan to Mangaluru (Mangalore) and passes through the western ghats past Sakleshpur. It runs around NH48 near Donigal, but gradually moves to the south of highway. The track passes through the stations Yedakumari and Shiribagilu and then crosses the Subramanya road.
Our plan was to take a saturday night KSRTC bus in Tumkur to Sakleshpur,get down there,take a bus to donigal and start trekking there by morning 7 and reach yedkumari before sunset.Catch "kannur express" train to subramanya road next morning at 4.
On the trek day, 13 people turned up.Abhishek, Amogh, Ashwin, pavan bandoji,Nithish,Harshith, Abhinandan, Mohan(filter), Vikas, Sukanth, Vinayraj, Adiga, Varun.Everything went as per the plan.We made Bus wait for nearly half an hour as Amogh was late.Finally our journey started. The road route from tiptur to hassan was horrible, hardly anyone slept in bus. We reached saklespur bus stand at 2 am took a night walk in streets of sakleshpur. Some guys slept in bus stand in first floor which was pretty decent place to sleep a vacant space with no one around.We rested there till sunrise and took an Auto to Donigal at 7 am.We got down past donigal railway station. Donigal station is marked as KM49 (guess, its the distance from Hassan), and subsequent markings are available in the track, which made it quite easy to keep track of the distance.
Finally, at around 7.30 we started off along the track, towards Yedakumari. For more than an hour,we trekked along the railway track and it turned out to be just a simple track to follow.It seemed trek was going to turn out boring until we encountered our first bridge at KM52. It was a small bridge, less than 50m long, but was enough to give us a feel of the bridges on the way.We all had the feeling of fear about the getting stuck in between bridge and suddenly train would arrive luckily nothing such thing happened since very few train come in this track . This trek is famous for the bridges and tunnels and the lush green environment around you.Next near KM55, we reached the 2nd bridge, followed by the 1st two tunnels. Tunnels actually increased our enthusiasm of trekking. The first two tunnels were small - only around 100m long and were almost continuous.
