After gap of a month, some campers approached me for the Kayaking/Island Camping Program. As usual, after addition and subtraction, we were of 6 member small gang. Vinod, Offered me to reserve the BUS tickets, so that was smooth affair. We decided catch the last bus from Bangalore to Sagar, so that the connecting local bus to the camp spot will be a comfortable. On 7th Nov friday night,we left Bangalore and we landed at Sagara on 8th Morning at around 7:00 AM. All of us got freshen at BUS stand toilet facility and had tea at a Hotel. By then it was 8:00 and Our local Bus arrived at the BUS stand. We all got in to Bus and sat next to the driver. As we all were looking some city bred lads..Driver pulled us in to conversation. He started explaining about how it was pre 1960, before the dam was built and now etc etc., He did not forget to give some tips too :).
By 8:45 We reached our Bus stop. We all got down and trekked for about 15 mins to our camp site. By then our crew had just landed there. Quickly our cook started preparing breakfast for us. Mean while I decided introduce everyone to Swimming. Before that we had a small briefing session. After the session all if got in to water and had a splash for about half an hour. By then Breakfast got ready. As all of were hungry to the core, we rushed there and had stomachacheful of 'UPPITTU'. That tomato uppittu was superb. Instead of Tea, there was this Khashaya, whiich is a local herbal drink. This drink is prepared like tea but powder is different roots, which are available locally. After having nice Breakfast, i introduced coracle paddling to campers. Everyone picked up very fast. We decided to move to island and all of hoped in to coracles and rafts and moved to island.
After reaching the island, all of us got in to water for the long swimming session. Meanwhile, our cook dharmanna had started preparing lunch. After a nice swimming session we all got back and had lunch. We rested for a while after the lunch and started off island exploration. All of got in to coracle and moved to a big island which was about 3 KM from our camp island. On the trail, we did see many small island. Each had different type of vegitation and shapes. At one island , we stopped for a sunset view. It was amazing view with water surface started turning to red color. Our photographers (Shashi and vaibhav) took some beautiful snaps and we started paddling back to our camp island. Quickly our guides started the camp fire and we set up the tents. All of sat around camp fire and some cracked great jokes and we had some time pass discussion on various subject. The moon light was bright and it was amazing seen around us. The water surface was flat as there was no wind and over the top there was a moon light. So it was awesome seen around, it was looking like silver plate around us :). By then dinner was ready, all of had nice dinner. We could not sit for long as everyone were tired...so decided to retire for the day and slept off.
All of us woke up by little late morning by around 6:30 and immediately i asked them to take the boat and go off to an another island to finish our "NiThya Karmas" :). Everyone were shocked, as they did not expect this !!!. Finally all of went in to another island and finished the routines... and came back to camp island. By then tea was ready, we had tea and got in to water for the morning splash. We played for a while, by then breakfast was ready. The menu was "AKKI ROTTI and PALYA". It was awesome combination. It was too good to have the hot and crispy rottis just out of stove :). After nice Breakfast, we had another round of tea and rested for a while. Then i called everyone to brief about "Kayak". Kayak is a single man paddling boat. It is great pleasure to paddling this boat. So after the brief everybody tried out the boat. Only Nhihal, got toppled many times while getting to the boat. But finally he could manage to get in and enjoyed the rides. After the kayak, next was raft rowing. after the briefing of this rowing, everyone tried bit raft rowing. Next was diving from a dead tree in the water...that was really fun. Everyone enjoyed this session. Later we had lunch and it was time to pack up. After little rest, we all packed up and put in to boats and left for the main land.
After reaching main land, we said good bye to our guides and started the trek to "Devara Gudda". After about an hour trek we reached the peak and it was an awesome view there. It was bird view of the whole of Sharavathi backwater. We rested for a while and started off the trek towards Alahalli where we were supposed to catch the local Bus back to Sagar. It was nice trek initially through the thick vegetation and later through habitation.
Afetr about 3 hours of trek from the peak, we rached Alahalli. We had tea and waited for Bus for while. Got in to a packed local bus and reached Sagar by 7:30. After some time pass, we had dinner and got in to the bus back to Bangalore. As all of were tired, we all got nice sleep and we reached mejestic by 5:45 AM. It was another Memorable,wonderful and activity filled weekend...
Campers:-
1) Shashidhar H B
2) Vaibhav
3) Nihal
4) Vinod
5) Somanath
6) Sampath
Photos:-
Photos by Vabhav
http://picasaweb.google.com/naga.2005/KayakingCampingTreking#
Photos by Shashi
http://picasaweb.google.com/hb.shashidhar/BackwatersOfSharavathiValley
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