Highlights of 2014

2014 – One of the best years in my life and I would like to tag it as ‘Adventurous Year’, because of some of the adventurous trips J, most importantly managed to cover most of the places which were pending from long time. 

Here it comes, Memorable moments of 2014…!!!

 

January – Trip to Mallalli Falls:

Date: 11th & 12th Jan 2014

This was the first trip in the year 2014. In fact this was the 5th time  I had planned to visit Mallalli falls, Previous 4 times i could not  make it, due to one or the other reason it was getting cancelled.  Finally I have executed this trip as per the plan.

Mallalli Falls is situated in the northern region of Kodagu District. Mallalli falls is situated around 25 km from Somwarpet and 265 km from Bangalore.

February – One day trek to Savandurga: 

Date: 1^st Feb 2014

Savandurga is around 60 km from Bangalore towards Magadi road. The hill is considered to be among the largest monolith hills in Asia. 

February – Trek to Unchalli Falls: 

Date: 8^th & 9^th Feb 2014

Unchalli Falls, also known as Lushington Falls, is a waterfall created by a 116 metres drop in the Aghanashini River. The fall is located near Siddapur in Uttara Kannada District of Karnataka.

February – Day out with Special Kids. 

Date: 16^th Feb 2014

Bike ride organised by Vinay on occasion of Valentine’s Day. This time we celebrated Valentine’s Day differently, Instead of restricting celebration with our soul mate or with our loved one we decided to celebrate it with orphan students.

It’s a great event initiated by Vinay and his team. Hats off to you guys J

March - Exploratory Trek to Mukurthi Peak: 

Date: 8^th & 9^th March 2014

Mukurthi National Park is a protected area located in the western corner of the Nilgiri’s Plateau west of Ooty hill station.

March - Unplanned trip to Kemmangundi: 

Date: 29^th March 2014

Kemmangundi is a hill station is located at Chikmagalur district. Kemmangundi has beautiful laid gardens, magnificent mountain ranges and superb valleys, excellent visual treat for the tourists. The main attractions at Kemmangundi are Raj Bhavan (a Guest House), Z point and the Rose garden maintained by the Horticultural Department.

April - Ride on Nice Road

Date: 6^th April

June – Dream Ride to Leh – Ladakh…!!!

Date: 28^th June 

Leh Ladakh bike trip - Dream ride of every biker. Trip was planned for 16 days, Traveling approximately 3 thousand Kilo meters, covering 3 States (Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab), Main places planned to cover are Kulu - Manali, Leh, Kargil, Srinagar & Amritsar.

Approximate Distance: 3,000 Kms

First step towards our adventures ride J

Rothang Pass

Honnemaradu

Honnemaradu is around 27 Kms from Sagara, because road is not so good it will take minimum 1 hour to reach from Sagara.

From almost one year we were trying to get permission for Honnemaradu, finally we managed to get it this year. One personal advice is do not expect any luxury at this place, just enjoy the nature.  

Bharathiya Sahasa Samanvaya Samsthe is taking care of activities in this place. Seriously we should appreciate the great work of this organisation. Nowhere around this place we will find plastic or any other garbage.  Even nearby villagers are supporting this organisation to keep this place clean. Dr. Swamy & Namito is running this organisation. 

We reached base camp around 10.00 a.m. Mrs. Namito was there and she explained us about the activities. We were allocated one room to dump all our luggages, later breakfast was served for us, and luckily we were the only batch on that day at this place.   

                                             Fresh faces before starting the activities J

Activities will start with Campus walk; Manjanna (one of the member of this organisation) took us through the campus and explained about the campus. This camping is held on backwaters of Linganmukhi bam. After campus walk they will allow us to swim in sharavathi backwaters (no one is allowed to get into water without life jackets) for more than one hour. After swimming it’s time for coracle (Teppa) ride, they will train us to coracle ride and take us near Benne Gudda Island.

Attraction of this island is this old tree, just connected to only one small part of its root.  

After coracle ride it’s time for lunch, once we are done with lunch we can relax for a while. Around 4.30 p.m. we started our journey towards camping spot, we are supposed to camp in Kori Gudda Island which is around 2 Kms. Again it’s time for Coracle ride, dumped all necessary things like tents, mats, dinner everything in coracle and headed towards Kori Gudda island.  

It will take almost 30 mins to reach Kori Gudda Island and on the way we witnessed beautiful sunset.

One more Volunteer Vikram joined us for camping (in fact he was with us from morning while swimming and coracle ride and guiding us). We reached camping spot around 5.30 p.m and we were intimated to collect wood for campfire.

We pitched in 4 tents with the help of Manjanna and Vikram. Set up the camp fire around 7.00 p.m. and Manjanna & Vikram were explaining us about their previous experience in camping and about the place.

We had our dinner around 9.00 p.m. and get into our tents for much required sleep 

Woke up very early in the morning and I was eagerly waiting to witness sunrise. We were very lucky that it was not cloudy morning, even mist was cleared and got very beautiful sunrise  

After witnessing beautiful sunrise we came back to camping spot and cleared the camp fire, packed all tents and came back to base camp. 

Our camping spot

While coming back wind was blowing heavily and seriously it was very scary moment we faced while returning. Waves were almost hitting inside the coracle and took more time to reach back the base camp.

Next activity for the day was trekking (it was just 3kms trekking) to Bhemana hejje.  Finished our breakfast and rested for a while and started our trekking.

Best part of this trekking is view of the linganamukhi dam. Once we reach top we will get beautiful view of the linganamukhi dam. 

View of Kori Gudda (our camping spot) from top of Bhemana hejje peak.  

While coming back 3 members from our team missed the route, but somehow managed to reach the base camp. Finally around 12.30 p.m. back to base camp relaxed for a while and again went to swimming.

Spent almost 1 hour in water and it was time to pack up from the beautiful and peaceful place. Finished our lunch and packed up all our belongings and clicked couple of pics with entire team including Dr.Sawmy, Namito, Manjanna & Vikram. 

After photo session it was time to vacate the place. Left the place around 5.00 p.m. and dropped Vikarm at Sagara. Stopped near Shimoga for dinner and reached Bangalore around 5.00 a.m.

It was wonderful ending for the year 2014, Special thanks to Seena for organising this trip and for co-ordinating to get permission at Honnemaradu 

Keladi Rameshwara Temple

Last trip of the year 2014; it was planned well in advance. Deepu started mail thread almost 2 months before so that everyone can apply for leave on 26th December. Dates were finalised before we decided about the place, as always Deepu & Seena were organisers for this trip. Our next challenge was to decide place. Initially we thought of bike ride to Kanyakumari but last moment we changed our plan, since we got slot in Honnemaradu. We were trying for the permission from past one year. Finally it we got slot on 26th and 27th December.  

Though we got slot on 26th we decided to start our journey on 24th night only and visit places around Sagara. Initially when we planned for this trip we were group of 15 people, but as usual at last moment couple of people dropped out of this trip. Finally 13 people turned out for this trip and we left Bangalore in 3 cars around 11.30 p.m. on 24th night.

Sanju and me reached Seena’s home around 9.00 p.m. only and we were waiting for rest of the guys to join us. Meanwhile Sanju did one brilliant thing, he left his car keys in car only while getting his jacket, when we get a call from other guys, we realised that car key is missing…!!! When we checked inside the car we found car keys in dickey.  After 30 minutes of circus we managed to open car door and started our journey. Don’t know why, nowadays none of the trips will start smoothly J

Sagara is around 350kms away from Bangalore, since after crossing Tumkur its single road night journey will take more than 8 hours to reach including all our breaks.

Reached Sagara around 8.00 a.m. in the morning, managed to find a hotel to stay. Hotel Sri Krishna (decent hotel in that town) booked 4 rooms and freshened up and decided to visit nearby places. Nearby Sagara we can fine couple of historical places.

Ikkeri – Aghoreshvara Temple.

Ikkeri is around 5 Kms from Sagara town. The temple was constructed in the 15th century with a blend of Hoysalas, Vijayanagara and Chola style of architecture. The Aghoresvara temple has Lord Shiva as its presiding deity. The word ‘Aghoresvara’ means “The lord of 14th night of the darker half of the month of Bhadrapada”, this is to honour the good deeds performed by Lord Shiva in protecting the universe.

Varadamoola:

Varadamoola is located 6 Kms. from Sagar town. Varadamoola is the source of the river Varada. Varada flows through the town of Banavasi before joining Tungabhadra.

Keladi Rameshwara Temple:

Keladi is a village situated around 10kms from Sagara town. This place was the first capital of the Keladi Nayaka Kingdom, who rose to prominence after the disintegration of the Vijayanagara Empire.

Shri Rameshwara temple or Keladi Rameshwara temple is the prime attraction of the destination. Dedicated to Lord Rameshwara, this temple also contains shrines of Goddess Parvati and Lord Veerabhadra. This temple is noted for its Kadamba, Hoysala and Dravidian styles of temple architecture.

We could not visit Keladi Museum (it was closed, when we checked with localities they told because of government holiday its closed…!!!).

Came back to hotel, celebrated Shetty’s (Vinay – many of us don’t know his original name :P) birthday and we were done for the day.