(mangalore - bangalore green route)
The Subrahmanya Hills lying to the north of Coorg form a part of the Western Ghats. There is a meter-gauge railway line from Hassan via Sakleshpura and Subrahmanya Road to Mangalore passing through this beautiful part of Karnataka. Currently the line is closed for traffic, and is being converted to broad-gauge. This place is feast for nature admirers. This place is full of lush green mountains and plenty of waterfalls.
Mode of Transport:
We started from Bangalore on Friday 18th September at around 10PM. WE had booked the 9 tickets to sakleshpura for the people. But to our fate only 3 were traveling and we had to hurry up in canceling the tickets. With loss of 50% on tickets and less people to travel bus we were suppose to travel was cancelled. We were told to board another bus. With this hectic start we started from bangalore at around 11.45Pm. Reached Sakleshpura at around 3AM Saturday early morning. We took a room in sakleshpura had a tea and headed to the railway trek.
DAY 1:
Our day was greeted by the low sunlight and mild fog. We had the breakfast in the sakleshpura town . We started our trek by trucking to village about 10 Km from Sakleshpura. Distance from Sakleshpura to the nearest halt(Yedkumeri) along the railway track is around 30Km. So we thought it will be too log for us for the day. Trucking helped us to reduce 30 Km to around 22 Km.
(Group photo)
Eventhough the track is close to the road at the beginning of the journey near Sakleshpura, access becomes rare once one goes farther from there. We started on track about 8AM on Saturday. railway track has over 60 bridges and same amount of tunnels.
Bridges are not at all scary. Two meter wide bridge is very safe to cross. Forget about walking on the bridge we ran on the bridge. if you have acrophobia then do not look down. repeted rail plates tend to dissapear due to illusion. that might scare you a bit. Bridges are the most beautiful part of this trek. Most of it will be having a typical water fall below it.
Lush green valley on the either side of the bridge will be feast to the nature lovers. Second best thing is the dark long tunnels. we had hat on our head to protect from wrath of bats in tunnels. Good spread type flash light with spare cells will do it for you. Tunnels are very dark and often loose damp soil becomes nightmare to walk on it without light.
When you exit out of the tunnel you see a different scenery from the place you entered the tunnel. And most of the tunnel exist will be followed by the bridge and a waterfall. There are more then 30 bridges and 25 tunnels we saw on the way. Shorted tunnel is just 20 Mts in length and longest one is 991Mts long.
(river at Yedkumeri)
Lunch Break Day 1
We cooked the lunch for 6 took bath in the freezing water two three cramps and rest for an hour we were ready to launch for the second half. We started from there at around 3.00Pm on Saturday. Now our destination was to reach the Yedkumeri(abandoned railway station ) before the dusk. We stopped on the way as we saw few Hunters with the multi shot gun. They were in search of the wild cats. Just as we were getting bored walking over the trek we saw a green snake. This is non poisonous often bites if stamped on. Bite seems to be painful. Railway track is broken at some parts due to landslide. We had to maneuver our way out of the rumble. Sometimes we took way through the jungle or sometimes we succeeded to cross the big obstruction.
It was just 4.00Pm Saturday evening when light started to fade in valley . We were scared as crossing the bridge will be problem. But just as we crossed a tunnel no. 14 it was bright as we found ourselves on the brighter side of the mountain. We could see the peaks on the other side of the valley. Few leeches on my shoes at one halt made me little bit nervous. But nothing brave me, I killed’ em all.
(We Running on Bridge)
Yedkumeri Day 1 Halt.
Dose of the glucose with the spring water we were at the Yedkumeri station at 4.30PM staurday. Station is just like one of the station seen in the client Eastwoods cowboy action series. You can still see the fare rates of the train to travel to Bangalore or Mysore and the station masters equipments. There are few abandoned cottages of the workers. Garden of the cottages still blossoms with flowers. We stopped at the station knowing the availability of the water. Now nature was getting king of rude on us, Clouds started to gather and we had to think a alternate place for shelter. We guys often sleep in the open with the most expensive roof of the starts over our head. Suddenly Uncle got the idea of getting all our luggage’s inside the cottage hall. But the hall was so dirty by the left over of the people. Sunil and Kau went ahead and started to clean the room. I was chopping the onions for the Dinner. Room that kau and sunil was cleaning was equipped with the poisonous guard.
First Encounter With Snake and Scorpian
after a good amount of survey we realised that room has few scorpians! I had lost the hope of even entering the room and made up my mind that I am not going to sleep inside the room. Just as we were cleaning the platform we saw a green snake on the platform. That was enough for me to stay awake whole night. But after the 8 hrs trek it was not possible to be awake whole night. Two pants shirt and Jacket was on my body in fear I buried myself in the sleeping bag. Dinner was no success this time as we screwed on the rice. Tonic(Vodka & wine) was at the lips of the five with me sipping the pestiside(pepsi). Dinner got over at 9.00Pm and small walk in the darkness to collect the firewood was all it required. We had a campfire lit few bombs on station. Pulling legs of each other we ended our day 1 of the trek.
(Messy Tunnels)DAY2
We got up at 6.00AM Sunday prepared the breakfast had a quick grub on it and started to head on to Gundya that was our destination. This again was 23 Km long and One should Gundya is not a station. It is a village situated at the bottom of the hill at about 4 Km from the railway track. So altogether we had to travel 27 Km. This route is more difficult then day 1 route.
This is because the landslide and fountains have cleared the way to such a extent that one need to take a long detour to cross the tunnels. Bridges over here are long and broken. The longest bridge that we saw was between Tunnel No. 10 and 11, and had a sharp curve to the right side. It was over a deep valley, and there was a small water-fall right beneath it. It began at the exit of Tunnel No. 10, landed in the mouth of Tunnel No. 11, which was 572 metres long, with a steady rightward curve. Little did we knew about the magnitude of the curve, till long after the curve we saw a bridge on a hill on other side of the valley, when we realised that the bridge and the tunnel had made us take almost a U-turn in those hills.
Exit:
While walking over the track you can peep over to the opposite mountain ranges and one can spot easily 6 to 7 waterfalls. Huge waterfalls seems to be unexplored. On day two we took a detour once we crossed the longest tunnel(991Mteres in length). We climbed down to Gundya.It took us almost one hour to reach the village. Ah Ha my favorite Fish fry was waiting for me in the villege. Me alone consumed two with pepsi and rest seeping chilled King Fisher. From Gundya to sakleshpura we did trucking. Sakleshpura we boarded “lal Dabba” to our way back to Bangalore.
