If you travel along the coastal road in Karnataka, at the place where the western ghats run near the coast, two majestic waterfalls makes their appearance. I had earlier seen them from the top of the ghats and walked along the river to see one of them. Recently, I got an opportunity to visit the other waterfalls when I visited Mangaluru for Kambala with Subbu and Girish.
From the National Highway, we took an auto to reach the starting point of the trek. It was about 10 kms from the highway with last four km was on jeep track. On the way, the falls made its appearance few times!!
After reaching the last house of the village, we kept all our luggages in the house and filled our water bottles. The auto guy departed asking us to call from the top of the falls (only place where the signal is available) so that he can come back to pick us up!!
Few years ago, one had to trek along the stream for 1.5 to 2 hours to reach the base of the falls. Today, there is a path made by forest department to the falls. This makes the trek relatively easy but still one had to walk for an hour to reach the base of the falls. It is mostly uphill journey.
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6th step of the falls |
The walk was uneventful. After walking for about 45 minutes, we reached the waterfall. A six step waterfall, it looked majestic. From the end of the trail, we could see the fifth and sixth step clearly. To climb to the fifth step, we had to cross the stream and climb up the boulders. This was an easy climb. The falls looked beautiful. The first level of the falls was also visible a bit. It was a good place to rest our bodies under the waterfall. That was a sooting experience!!
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5th step |
We tried to climb up to reach upper parts of the waterfall but it looked risky to do so. It was above our risk quotient and hence we decided to enjoy at the 5th step itself. It requires some serious effort to climb up further. The board at the start of the trail mentioned about four people who died in the waterfall. Most likely they tried to climb higher.
Unfortunately, this falls has attracted lot of drunkards who cannot think anything outside drinking as means of enjoyment. And they traces they leave in the form of broken bottles is a shame to any civilization. And others have contributed their part by throwing plastic and papers everywhere. Very sad state of affairs in India (especially in Karnataka).
After spending a long time at the waterfalls, we headed back to the village. The auto had already arrived. We had our late lunch at a small hotel on the highway. The prime attraction was a big bull that was trying to get into the hotel. But it was a sad state to see it eating plastic and papers.
Labels: trek, Waterfalls