Trek to Kodachadri Hills
Many times we think how do we spend our weekends, shopping, meet friends, watch movie or just relax at home….this weekend was something different which we had never tried before – hard trek!!
Tuesday Sept 8th, Rama’s music classmate Sowmya, tells him that she is going for trekking to Kodachadri. He gets excited and asks if two more can join the group. He checks with me if I can, without any second thought I reply – Yes! Except for her, rest all are new for us. After that I hear no news and get busy with work, Friday 11th Sept he walks up to me & says we are leaving to night by bus. He sends me a forward with the Itinerary and Instructions, also the names who will be in the trek. Bharath and his group strictly follow Zero litter policy. Avoid Plastic as much as possible. Use alternatives like cloth, jute, paper bag, etc which are bio degradable. Paper tissues strictly prohibited! These instructions were nothing new, Its part of our life.
We start from office at 4.45pm make a stopover at a place to the pickup required stuff, sleeping bag from Wildcraft – Jayanagar, some ready to eat stuff, snacks etc.. reached home packed our bags had dinner and start at 1030pm, reach KSRTC bus stand, excited to meet new friends. Everybody reaches with small intro we all board the bus, which started sharp midnight J. We reach Shimoga at 5.30am, There we had 3 more folks joining us who had a bolero, dumped our bag on to that and boarded a private local bus which would take us to a farm house 105KM from Shimoga “Uday Simha farm house” On the way we spot peacocks & peahens, The farm house is very interesting there are clay structures of wild animals humans, reptiles, after a quick refresh, we head straight to fill our stomach with good malnad style breakfast & then board jeeps (open) our journey towards a waterfall - Harshina gundi, Must say it was very exciting mud race…Rama calls it “Ride of the life” one of the jeep which was ahead of us got stuck in the mud, our driver helped them and we moved on, after some distance our jeep had to take a turn and the driver took a long one, the back tyre on the right side slipped to the edge, appreciate the driver’s presence of mind he stopped the jeep and we got off to see what happened we just thanked our stars for we all were safe! We just started walking sure that others would be waiting for us..upon meeting told them what happened to our jeep as usual the other drivers went and along few of our friends went to get the jeep, after their return we started walking through the paddy fields reached the waterfall, then what!! Just jumped into the water and enjoy! We had to leave because all were hungry, headed straight to the farm house where we were served malnad style lunch, at 430pm, we started to towards the hills of Kodachadri..

We had no clue how the roads would be, It was again “ride of life” two jeeps full of people looking at each other how the jeep skid go the rocks to reach our destination. The drivers are so talented, the journey was just awesome!! We reach a grassland patch on the hills and we stopped. The view was just spectacular! click great pictures, everything that captured our eyes. But we had to leave that place and move forward before it gets dark..in another few minutes we reach the Kodachadri temple – we decided to camp there, started looking for the place where we could pitch our tents. Bharath & Putta talk to the locals to know which is better and less leeches occupied..Finally above a hill the strong men pitch the tent..and guess what?? Its starts raining – we take all our bags put then in the tents and come down to the circuit house with all the eatables…As the rice & rasam is getting cooked for us in the kitchen few of us check ourselves how many leeches are sucking our blood..we had dinner go the tents and slip into sleeping bags.

Waking up at 5am, we just step out of the tents, everybody wakes up one by one! 30mins later most of them walk 200meters high to see the sun rise. The path may be just about two feet in width, I was not very confident to walk up all the way and decide not to go any further as am very scared of heights…Once everybody is back we go up another hill which is the highest, up there is a small temple of Shankara Charya, Many say it that was in this place where he saw Goddess Mookambeke. After posing for pictures we head back to the tents, we pack reach the circuit house, have quick breakfast, fresh-up at the flowing from the streams…

Now the journey down the hill starts, we have local guide who joins us to help. It may be about 700am we are on our foot with back packs. Literally walking on the leeches, some remedies for not getting these blood suckers onto you, few of us are brave and dint bother much. We started walking down, slipping falling crossing fallen trees, small streams. On the path we could find few stalls which provided us with buttermilk, lemon juice refreshed ourselves. In matter of minutes we would be down few hundred meters. Just sheer confidence on the person who was holding my hand that none of us would slip, we would cross any obstacle. We were down the hill by 130pm, reached a small hotel refreshed and started again. Now it was just road, We must have walked 4 – 5kms but the guide kept telling it’s just 2kms and it was the longest 2km of our life!

We had to stop again to have some food, and we were so tired that we just dumped our bags and fell flat on the ground…Rama starts playing the flute, His favorite gamakas, which he is good at..I can tell you how much he has improved in the last one year J These two days we had water from the streams which was so good, the best mineral water.

Bharath, Sandy, Rajneesh, Vadi, Putta, Raghu all made us feel so comfortable, it dint make us feel that all meeting for first time. This was first hard trek for Rama & I.

Finally we hit the road – it was exactly 320pm, the next bus to was at 330pm, we bid goodbye to Uncle, Putta & Chintu. Rest of us board the bus find seats for ourselves settle and just fall asleep. We reach Shimoga at 730pm straight to a hotel, Ashok…after some negotiations with the person at the reception we get two triple bedrooms to get refresh and take some rest, one for women & one for men, Surprise! Women are ready before the men! 930pm we go for dinner just two men turn up! Where are the rest?? They are busy refreshing themselves J they join us later.. with so much body pain, we leave the hotel at 11am reach the KSRTC bus stand board the bus to Bangalore – fall asleep, To reach Bangalore at 530am, back to work. These two days, we had no cell phones we could call family only while we reached shimoga city..

This first trek of mine is indeed an unforgettable one!