Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Feb 26, 2013

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What is a treknic?

It was  2 years before when I started volunteering with Bangalore ASCENDers , many new comers wanted to do trekking but not the hard ones...  then the idea of  Trek Cum Picnic came in. It includes bit of trekking and bit of site seeing... bit of relaxation and bit of toughness... tough it was widely accepted by many and good response...  There were few events with the title starting with  Trek Cum Picnic to....

Dont know how the word was formed either might have struck to mind from some where or slowly the Trek Cum Picnic transformed to the word Treknic .
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Oct 8, 2012

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Paithalmala Trek

Paithalmala also called Vaithalmala is a hill with an altitude of 1300+  meters located in Kannur district of Kerala.
Nearest Railway Statuion: Payyanur or Kannur
Bus: buses are available from Kannur and payyannur to Kudiyanmala and Kappimala. From there take a jeep drive to starting point of the trek.

From Bangalore: Bangalore - Mysore - Virajpet - Iritty - Kudiyanmala - Paithalmala

Best Season: Post monsoon when the grass lands are green. Monsoons one can trek but beware of leaches.

Note: If you are not sure of trekking trail don't venture here as you may get lost in the vast coorg forests and its difficult to find the way back.

Paithalmala  borders the forests of Coorg and is an extension to the vast forests of Kodagu hills. The hills is mainly grass lands with few shola forests in between. Half the hills are encroached and converted to estates / resorts etc. There are some private resorts there and recently there had been an inaguration of a Government guest house  handled DTPC, Kannur. But its not yet functional, soon they may open it for public.
Its an upcoming tourist destination in Kannur.

At the top there are few trails to walk along the ridges and few view points created to promote tourism. Carry your food. Carry water depending on the season you are going.

There are 2 trekking routes to the peak, one from Pottenplave and another from Kappimala. Trekking from Pottenplave is much easier as the intial climbs you can cover in some private vehicles/auto/jeeps tought the road is little steep at some places.

There are lot of seasonal waterfalls  which becomes active in monsoons. En route to the peak take a deviation from the road theirs a layer of waterfalls (only in monsoons and post monsoons), just check with localities to get route to that.. enjoy them from the safer side as they are some risky places.

Some pictures from a monsoon trek,









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Sep 23, 2012

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Stop naming wild animals

Wild animals.. they belong to the wild and they live their life there, stop treating them like your pets and naming them. When ever i travel to the forest bordered villages or talking to photographers all mention some names referring tigers, elephants , deers etc...  maniyan, chemban, ganeshan , sweety,  sundari, harini etc etc...   May be they are showing their affection/love by naming them and calling them, but doesnt they belong to the wild? Leave them in wild and stop treating them like your pets...  In zoos they name them but in wild they belong to  wild and its a very bad thing to name them I feel...
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Jul 25, 2012

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Trekking in Thekkady and Gavi

Gavi..?? where in Kerala? Is it a tourist place? Which district it is? etc these were the queries i got after posting the event in the website. Monsoons in its peak time,bad time to visit the forests of Periyar tiger reserve. Good response and a bunch of people registered within the first week and was forced to close the registration within few dates.

So Friday night I reached Shanti Nagar bus stand from where our bus to Kumily was booked. People started coming and finally after all late comers majority seats of the bus were filled by the ascenders. We started of to Kumily, morning when woke up we were in the plains of Tamil Nadu near Kumbam. Hills far ahead, grape farms and drizzling, a good sign to start up with the day. We could see a waterfall sliding through the hills and I made an announcement its Chellarkovil waterfalls and we will be visiting that today. All heads out of windows to see it:):).

After 1 hour of climbing up from Cumbam we reached Kumily... cool and pleasant atmosphere welcomed we crossed the check post in border to Kerala. We checked in to hotel and decided to start by 10.00AM after breakfast with a Jeep ride. mean time went to the forest office and made the arrangements for Gavi passes. By 10.00AM 4 Jeeps were in front of the Hotel and all occupied the best seats and we headed off to Ottakathalamedu (camel head top, if I translated correct ) view point in Kumily. When we started climate was good but as we attained altitude it started drizzling.

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Jul 16, 2012

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Nature call and the step falls

After first day of camping at Dudhsagar we were in the railway track walking towards Kulem, - our destination.  The sweeper, the last lady and Baba was walking at the end. Baba from morning was bit upset as he has not got the nature call yet.. finally he gets the call and started to look for that corner of nature to explore.. At one point he saw a side stream and some heavy waterfall sound, he shouted to the sweeper who was walking little ahead . Sweeper went to Baba and they decided to go down and check the stream. There were stairs going down. The lady started following these people. Baba got disappointed seeing the lady following  them as he thought of fulfilling his need some where around... 
We crossed a small stream and some knee deep stream and found a step falls... what made it special was the green  patches of grass between the rocks. So it was combination of black rock, white water and green grass in between... a stepped waterfalls .
So Baba’s  nature call helps us find a stepped waterfalls .. lot people  might have been there before and after us but we found it due to Baba’s nature call.
Some pictures of the great expedition,

Step waterfalls near  Dudhsagar

Step waterfalls near  Kulem
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