And the situation is.....

My first trekking - Dabbe falls and Kanooru fort in Sharavati Valley

Well, I'm neither a blogger nor a trekker. This is my first attempt at both.

I guess it was around mid Jan that I had started looking for something different to do over weekends, rather than sitting idle and getting bored at home. I discovered a few groups of adventurers, trekkers, travelers etc. in meetup and decided to go on a trek to Sharavathi Valley with Bangalore AdvenTuRers (a.k.a. BAT).

We - 20 AdvenTuRers including our captain Niranjan - left Bengaluru around 9:30 PM on Friday (05 Feb 2016) in a minibus. Niranjan briefed about BAT, next two day's plan, strict "no litter" policy etc., and we all got introduced to each other on our way to Sagara.

About Sagara:

Sagara is located around 350kms from Bangalore in Shimoga District. Located in the Western Ghats range, it is known for its proximity to Jog Falls and to the historical places of Ikkeri, Keladi and Varadamoola. Sagara derives its name from Sadashiva Sagar, which is a lake. Sadashiva Nayaka, ruler of Keladi dynasty built a lake in between Keladi and Ikkeri.

Route map from Bengalore to Sagara

After having breakfast we started our trek from Hosagadde village in Sagar Taluk.

Ready for business!

About Sharavati Valley:

Sharavati is a river which is one of the few westward flowing rivers of India and a major part of the river basin lies in the Western Ghats. The famous Jog Falls are formed by this river. The river itself and the region around it are rich in biodiversity and are home to many rare species of flora and fauna. A part of the Sharavati river basin was declared as a wildlife sanctuary, Spread over an area of 431.23 km2, The sanctuary has mainly evergreen, semi-green and some moist deciduous forests.The sanctuary is a refuge of the endangered lion-tailed macaque. Other mammals include tiger, leopard (black panther), wild dog, jackal, sloth bear, spotted deer, sambar, barking deer, mouse deer, wild pig, common langur, bonnet macaque, Malabar giant squirrel, giant flying squirrel, porcupine, otter and pangolin. Reptiles include king cobra, python, rat snake, crocodile and monitor lizard. Some of the avian species found in the sanctuary include three species of hornbill, paradise flycatcher, racket-tailed drongo and Indian lories and lorikeets

On our way to Dabbe Falls:

Villager's dam on our way...



And we found a house - Dabbemane, almost after 5kms of walk inside forest. 


Real fun begins now... After dabbemane, we crossed paddy fields and found steep descents inside the thick forest. We had to use roots of trees, rocks etc for support to go down. At a few places, had to take support from rope.


Wow..... We reached waterfalls :)

Dabbe Falls is a pristine waterfall near Hosagadde in Shimoga. It is one of the few waterfalls of Karnataka which have not been polluted with frequent tourist and hence still preserves its heavenly touch. where the water plunges into narrow gorge, to witness one need to negotiate steep descent, checks all your Adventure skills. Height of the falls is 110 metres (360 feet). The waterfall is also known as Kepjoga in the native language as it makes a lot of sound while gushing down the rocks.

We all had a lot of fun in waterfall.... It was refreshing to get water fall onto you directly from 300+ f. All tiredness from the difficult descent vanished with it. We had our lunch (Everyone carried their food all the way through the journey!) and started our return trip around 2pm.
Our guide kept telling us it's just 10 minutes / ½ km to camp site.... and finally we reached our camp site after 7kms of walk!

On our way to base camp for night stay - 10 minutes / ½ km from here.. And again 10 minutes / ½ km after this and again.....
 

Camp site on either side of bridge, kitchen to right and bedroom on left side of the bridge. Location : 14.139270, 74.710233 [Courtesy: Datta's Sonim mobile]
 

Camp site
Our group of 23 was having fun sitting around the campfire on the bank of  a forest stream  :). After a few horror stories from Sandesh and Tarun, we finished our dinner and were snug inside the sleeping bags looking up at clear sky filled with millions of stars!

Situation is :  In which direction Sandesh's gombe (doll) will turn ?


About situation game:

Subodh introduced this game to us and made everyone in group kept thinking of the situation. In the game of situation puzzles, a mysterious situation is presented to a group of players, who must then try to find out what's going on by asking further questions. The person who initially presented the situation can only answer "yes" or "no" to questions (or occasionally "irrelevant"). First mysterious situation, "A man with backpack is running to escape from elephant in middle of a forest".

Shabba Khair!!


Hello, Good morning... Its beautiful Sunday Morning (7th Feb 2016) in middle a forest on the bank of river Sharavati. After having delicious upma and a strong dose of lemon tea, we got ready for another adventurous day. Today's plan is to visit Kanuru Kote.

About Kanuru Kote:

Kanoor Fort ,also called Keladi Kote (‘kote’ means a ‘fort’ in Kannada) is located in the middle of a dense forest in Sagar Taluk of Shimoga District in Karnataka. This area was ruled by the Keladi dynasty, hence the name.         The Kanoor Fort was constructed during the reign of Kari Menaseia Rani Abbaka Devi in the 15th-16th century. Abbakka had good diplomatic relations with Keladi as also with Zamorin of Calicut. Abbakka refused to the Portuguese terms of trade. She sent ships laden with pepper and other commodities directly to Arabia and Persia and earned huge profits. She became famous as pepper queen. The Portuguese obstructed her trade and waged wars against her. Undaunted Abbakka with the help of Keladi King Venkatappa Nayaka and Zamorin of Calicut, fought against the Portuguese, seized four Portuguese ships and made the Portuguese withdraw.                  Later Rani Chennabhyradevi thwarted attempts by many neighboring rulers and even the Portuguese who tried to conquer this wealthy land. But subsequently, the rulers of Keladi and Bilgi joined hands and attacked, the kingdom fell to them and ‘Pepper Queen’ went down in history as an exemplarily brave queen.       The fort area is now full of age-old trees and creepers to the extent that anyone venturing into it without a good sense of direction is sure to get lost in the wilderness.

On our way to Kanuru Fort:


It was around 8kms walk inside forest (one way). Even though it is hot summer, it was all fun walking.  

At Kanuru Kote


With BAT Founder and Organizer


After finishing Kanuru kote trek around 3pm, we had ample time to spend before heading back to Bengaluru. We decided to visit a few places like Joga Falls, Aghoreshwara Temple Ikkeri,  Shri Sridhara Swami Mata Varadahalli. Below are some information about these places (thanks to Google)

About Joga Jalapatha and Raja, Roarer, Rocket and Rani: 

Jog Falls, Gerosoppa Falls or Joga Falls is the second-highest plunge waterfall in India. Jog Falls is created by the Sharavathi River dropping 253 m (830 ft), making it the second-highest plunge waterfall in India after the Nohkalikai Falls with a drop of 335 m (1100 ft) in Meghalaya. The Sharavati, flowing over a very rocky bed about 250 yards (230 m) wide, here reaches a tremendous chasm, 290 m (960 ft) deep, and the water comes down in four distinct falls. The Raja Fall pours in one unbroken column sheer to the depth of 830 ft (250 m). Halfway down it is encountered by the Roarer, another fall, which precipitates itself into a vast cup and then rushes violently downwards at an angle of forty-five degrees to meet the Raja. A third fall, the Rocket, shoots downwards in a series of jets; while the fourth, the Rani, moves quietly over the mountain side in a sheet of foam.

This is not right time to visit Joga, as water collected in Linganamakki dam is used exclusively for power generation. One should visit Jog during monsoon session or soon after monsoon to enjoy the majesty of Joga Jalapatha.

About Aghoreshwara Temple, Ikkeri

The Aghoresvara temple is a large structure, built of granite, in a uniquely mixed style that incorporates elements from Vijayanagara, the Karnata Dravida style of the Later Chalukyas and Hoysalas, as well as the architecture of the Deccan Sultanates. The temple faces north and has lofty roof and ornamental doorways on the west, north and east, the north doorway being the best with two elephants at the sides. The Garbhagriha, which is built of huge stones, contains a gigantic pedestal occupying nearly three-fourths of the whole space and sculptured all round with 32 seated female figures called shakthi peeta. In the Sukhanasi is a small translucent Nandi carved out of white spar. The temple has no navaranga doorway there are two niches, those to the right containing the figures of Ganesa and Subramanya and those to the left figures of Mahishasuramardini and Bhairava.

About Shri Sridhara Swami Mata Varadahalli:

Saint Shri Shridhara Swami also referred to as "Bhagwan Sadguru Shri Shridhar Swami Maharaj" who lived in Varadapura (Varadahalli) and spent his last few years of his life preaching the Dharma and some of his principles to his disciples and led the foundation for this Shrine. This Shrine consists of Samadhi, Gynan Mandir, Dharma Sthamba, Goshala, Shridhar Teertha.

Thanks a lot to our organizer Niranjan for organizing this event and  special thanks to our guides Santhosh, Sandeep and Santhosh!

And that's all it is.... After two days of fun - We had our dinner at Shimoga and headed back to Bengaluru.

P.S. This is my first attempt in writing a blog, if you have any feedback, suggestions, tip and tricks to share, feel free to add below as comments, alternatively you can email it to me.