For this trek we did one of the most detailed research taht could possibly be done. Conventionally people start from Banglore (on buses which go via Kukke ) and get down at a tea stall near Donigal Railway station and start trekking from there till Yedakumeri railway station. They halt at yedakueri for the night and trek till Sribagilur railways station the next day and take an exit which comes 4 kms after Sribagilur and reach the highway. From there they manage to get buses Kukke. Otherwise people manage to get the train which passes through YEdakumeri at 430 in the morning and reach Kukke. The third possibility is taking a forest route out of Yedakumeri and crossing the Kempehole river. The trek is walked in this route spans a distance of 20-45 km (depending on how you exit). There was a possibility of getting kicked out of the trek by Ralway employees as well.
This was the image that we had gathered by reading all the blogs and by talking to people.
Our trek adventure is an anti thesis to all these examples and experiences. The trip started for Anirud , Aswin , Nithin and myself from Chennai. We drove Anirud's car from Chennai top Banglore. A very event ful drive where we were chased by the rains where ever we went.
Amid liberal breaks for photographs we reached Banglore after a gruelling 8 hour drive ( 4 of which was within both the cities) only to find it raining cats and dogs in Banglore (it is not supposed to rain in Banglore in November) We were informed that it had been raining very badly in Sakleshpur area for the past 3 days. On hearing this news I totally freaked out and felt that it was a very bad idea to actually trek during/ immediately after rain (Falling half a dozen times in the slush in the Himalayan trek was still fresh in my mind). I was booed and threatened by everyone around me and was dragged to the Majestic bus terminus.
There Smrithi and Madhu joined us. It was one of Smrithi's brilliant ideas to trek from Kukke rather than from Donigal . The idea was quite simple. We start from Kukke and walk till how much ever we can depending on the terrain and turn back to Kukke. The advantages of this idea was that your exit from the trek is simplified. You dont ahve to wait at desolate highways for buses (which would be the case if u exited from Sribagilur or Yedakumeri) or wait till the morning for the passenger train. We simply walk till we are tired and then turn back. Everyone liked the idea so we grabbed it. We got into the bus and started our adventure towards Kukke.
The bus drive to Kukke was not very bad except for very bad jolts towards the end which will sort of rattle you. Mumbaikar (Nithin) had a contact in Kukke and he manged to get hold of a nice lodging. We refreshed ourselves and finally started for the trek. We grabbed a jeep from Kukke town to the station (a 13 km distance jeep driver dropped us for Rs 200) We started trekking around 845 AM. We maintained a good pace and manged to reach close to Sribagilu in 4 hours time (13-14 km distance) . This was amidst really funny experiences while crossing bridges and tunnels, not to mention Madhu getting caught in a tunnel while a train was passing by (must have been a terrifying experience). It started raining when we were close to Sribagilu and the time was around 1230. We thought we must be turning back to Kukke.
It was on our way back taht we met a a very nice railway linesman. He orally guided us through a couple of exit routes. We tried one of those only to find it infested with leeches. We all ahd to run for dear lives (with poochi (Aswin) crying that the leeches were taking even the little blood he had and Gerrard (Anirud) mumbling that his was a very rare blood group) We all amanged to get the leeches out of us (after generous "helpings" of salt (thankfully pepper was not there) .
It was then decided that we will walk all he way to Kukke on the track rather than venture into leech infested areas. We were walking down the track when a lone engine was chugging by. We waved at the engine (amidst my mumbling that it will never stop) and the engine did stop!!!!
we all jumped on to the engine which was driven by a couple of really nice gentlemen who were inquiring about our trek (must have thought that we were all a bunch of jack assess).They dropped us near Kukke station (they would have got into trouble if they were spotted giving us a lift) we happily thanked them and caught a jeep back to the hotel.
We refreshed ourselves in time to catch the bus out of Kukke which started at 430PM. After settling (uncomfortably) in the bus we realized that we were n for a 8 hour roller coaster ride. The driver happened to be a mad man who had the scantiest regard for road safety. He overtook LPG carrying lorries and inched so close to the gorge that we weer scared out of our wits. After very long breaks we finally reached Blore.
Arrangements had been made to stay the night at my cousin Surya's house in Koramangala. I had promised my aunt that I would come by 1230. When we did finally reach there it was around 130 Am. We managed to save a lot of time in locating that house because Smrithi and Madhu lived right opposite to their house.
After a long chat with my cousin I finally crased at around 330AM and got up at like clockwork at 630 Am. We all got ready by 930 in the morning and after having breakfast we moved to Mumbaikar's cousin's place to pick the car. We decided to search for Poochi's mysterious girl in the streets of Jaynagar (thats a very long story which deserves a separate post) After not finding the mystery girl, we were guided by Nithin's cousin to the Jaynagar market to buy honey for Gerrard's mom.
We finally started out of Blore at around 1230 and after witnessing a very unfortunate accident we finally made it to the buzz of Singara Chennai. Once again it was a wonderful trek with an awesome gang of people.
