Donigal – Yedakumeri Railway track trek [Green Trek]

2008 – Beda Kanro, land slide agtidyante…DANGERU!!!!!

2009- Sikkapatte heavy rain ante, maneli bidalla…next time hogona.

2010 – Internals alli average illa, project complete agilla, seminar bere tale novu, eee time alli trek ella beka???

21^st April 2011

Finally after 3 consecutive years of flop planning, the 4^th year i.e. 2011, and the time came for me and most of my friends to go on a green trek. This time we decided not to plan as we had done the past 3 years. We had 3 precious days of holidays on 22^nd (Good Friday) and weekend. Me along with 7 of my friends ( dilip, sumanth, seena, vinod, harshit, rajesh and venkat ) told ourselves “ YES !!! This is the time for our much awaited green trek..Evag hoglilla andre life alli hogalla “.

On Thursday, me and Dilip set out to send messages to rest 6 of them of what all to carry for the trek, since many of them were doing their first trek. Till Thursday night, we had not decided what transport we are taking, whether to take a train or a bus or what? by 8.00 pm we came to know there is an 11.00 pm KSRTC bus which goes to Sakleshpur.Since it was raining heavily and huge traffic jam, Dilip and his buddies reached bus stand at 11.15 pm and we missed the bus which we intended to take. But luckily there was a special bus at 12.00 to Dharmastala which goes via Sakleshpur. With all the cheering, with josh we rushed inside the bus and with 5 odd hours of journey, we got down in a place called Donigal which is around 7 kms from Sakleshpur. We had to walk 3 kms from Donigal to catch up with the railway track. With the morning cool breeze, the curvy roads, the greenery of the trees, birds chirping, sound of water streams, We were off to a different world .

After walking for 3 kms on road, there was a bridge where we had to take a right turn to catch up with the railway track. We were there on track by 6.30 am and with couple of snaps here and there, our “Chukku Bukku “journey began!!!

The best thing about the green trek is there is always greenery, 365 days 24*7 there is water flowing and those beautiful mountains kissing the sky makes you feel so special, we were happy. Finally we made this trek possible and with this joy, we had covered around 3 kms. This was the time we witnessed the first bridge. Some bridges along this trek is so steep that you will not be able to witness what is the depth, but the railway department has done a wonderful job of placing the iron plates in between the railings so that it’s easy for the trekkers to walk in those bridges.

I had seen those bridges on TV, had read in news papers. But believe me, the kind of joy you get when you are on those bridges cannot be explained. We continued our walk and were eager to see the first tunnel on the way.

We got the first tunnel after 2 hours of slow paced walk. Some tunnels here are as long as to 564 mts (half a km). You need a torch to walk in those tunnels. It’s so dark that you will not be able to visualize anything, NOTHING!!! ALL ARE BLANK!!! I had a feeling of blindness in those tunnels. We almost get to cross 14-15 bridges and almost 15-16 tunnels on the way from Donigal to Yedakumeri. By 1.00 pm, we removed chapattis for lunch, had to full of our stomach, had bath in the stream flowing nearby and our journey resumed.

By 6.00 pm, we were in middle of the tunnel and it suddenly started raining.” Superb weather” was the reaction by one of them .Clouds were merging together, sunset was about to happen, all the birds were heading towards their nests and we headed towards yedakumeri. It was mind-blowing to witness all those scenes. We walked in the rain and finally reached our destination, Yedakumeri station by 6.45 pm. We stayed there in one the railway guard’s house, who prepared dinner for us. He served us with rice, sambar and mango pickles. After dinner, 10-20 mins of chit-chat, we broke asleep.

Next day morning we took 4.30 am train from Yedakumeri to Kukke subramanya and 10.30 train from Kukke subramanya to Bangalore.

In the whole, I felt I had achieved something which I was not able to do it from past 3 years. It was an amazing experience to walk through those scary bridges, darkened tunnels, in middle of water streams etc. we were lucky enough to get 3 trains on our way during the journey. Anyone who is a nature lover has to visit this place at least once in their lifetime and in turn can be a part of those auspicious presents rewarded by goddess NATURE!!!