The moment we hear Dudhsagar, one word comes to our mind, Rail Track. The Rail Track of 14kms from CastleRock to Dudhsagar is extremely popular, during every monsoon we can see lots of people getting down at castle rock for the Rail Track Trek. Well, my first Trek was also this same stretch, just last year.
But this time we were here for a real trek, not just walking up and down the Rail Line.
The trek was planned by BASC, Sudheer. We boarded the Chennai Vasco Express from K R Puram. Rest of the group boarded from Yashwantpur. We got introduced to each other, and played dumb sharade to pass time. Our train reached Castle rock station at around 10.30 am. We got down, common stuff was distributed and we got ready the trek. We crossed the station platform and went to the castle rock village. There we packed our lunch, it took quite some time for preparing lunch for 15 ppl.
the rainy morning at castle rock
It was already peak monsoon season. From morning itself it was drizzling. We enjoyed watching the monsoon morning unfolding in this village.
After getting our lunch packed we started walking towards the govt school, at around 12.30 noon. There is a trail from left side of the school, through which we enter the forests.
The road from village to Govt School, isnt everything green!!
The trail from the School
first stream crossing, and we lost count of streams after that
And slowly the trail gets narrower and the forest denser
After walking for sometime, a green vine was spotted. This was my first spotting of a snake. Everyone was excited and we started talking snaps. I took around 30 snaps of the snake and few of them came out real good. The green vine was very calm, and was not bothered by our presence.
The beautiful Green Vine
By the time myself and Anirudh finished, others had moved quite ahead. We hastened to catch up with them.
Soon the forest became dense, and we were following a big pipe, basically walking on that pipe. Around 2pm, Sudheer realized we were following the wrong trail. It was decided that we backtrack and follow the pipe back to some open grounds. We traced our way back, and reached a small cottage, which seemed to emerge out of nowhere. No one was staying there, we had our packed lunch near the cottage.
a green Grassland
After lunch, we were supposed to find out the trail to a village called ghotga. We were lost, not sure which way to go. Till now, it was drizzling, but it started to pour heavily. Our only option was returning back to castle rock. We were waiting and discussing what to do next, then miraculously two villagers appeared. We were on the border of karnataka and maharastra, so most of the people here only spoke marathi. and luckily we had 3 marathi friends. They showed us the trail to the village. They even gave us their phone number, in case we get lost. We were really excited, we were saved, just few moments earlier we had given up. We were going to return back. But our day was saved, we were back to resuming our adventures. Since it was raining continuously, the trail which the villager showed was full of at-least ankle deep water. Actually this trail was right behind where we were standing, we did not consider it because it was water logged, and it did not seem like a proper trail.
Soon we were deep inside the forests. Even though, the forest was not very dense, we were following a proper trail. We crossed lots of small streams on our way. We were either crossing knee deep streams or walking on ankle deep water logged trails. We did not gain too much height, all along the trail. It was almost flat for the entire length.
The water logged trails
It was already past 5pm, it was going to get dark very soon. And we were still nowhere. It was not possible to camp here. Even though we had plain flat grounds, it was full of water. And then around 6pm another miracle happened. We saw a lone cottage, in the middle of nowhere. We saw the boundary of the house. Purbi crossed the barricade and went inside to see if anyone was there. After sometime she came running with a good news. A family was staying there. They would help us.
the house where we stayed
We were all completely drenched, since it was raining non-stop till now. So finding a proper shelter at the end of the day, was a big reward for us. The family agreed to let us stay for the night in their spare room.
We all changed into our dry clothes, and started preparing the dinner. We were carrying vegetables and everything and just used their stove to cook our dinner. After having hot stomach full of dinner, we retired for the much needed sleep.
Purbi in the kitchen with our host
Day two
Early morning we woke up to the cock-a-doodle-doo of the roosters. We had a big day ahead of us. We would be finishing the rest of our journey, reach dudhsagar and then castle rock to catch our return train.
We had breakfast and were ready to leave by 9.30.
our host showed us the way to ghansuli, from where we will get another guide. We were following a small stream. To climb a hill we had to walk right through the stream. After hiking over several terrains, crossing few streams, we found our guide. The trail we took, was through forests and was passing some excellent locations. There was a point where we were actually on the border of karnataka and maharashtra. I will let the pics to at least give an idea of the kind of trail we followed.
Meandering River, Green Carpet, surrounding Forest, and Mist covered Hills, right out of a Dream sequence,
Our Guide for day 2, its actually very difficult to find the routes without a guide
crossing the last and final stream
the stream leading to Dudhsagar
thats dudhsagar
abandoned buildings are also green
Tunnel where we got down
At around 1pm, we reached the stream, the source of dudhsagar falls. You cannot guess by looking at the river that it is the source to the majestic dudhsagar. We crossed the stream and the trail was going up. After climbing for some time, we got the side view of dudhsagar, but was all cloudy and foggy, so no clear view.
Finally by 2, we were climbing down. For the first time, we got a glimpse of the valley. Till now we were completely inside forests. After a short hike, we climbed down over a tunnel and reached the rail tracks.
We saw lots of people were there to visit the falls. Everyone was screaming and were extremely excited. We realized the reason for the excitement when we actually saw the falls, It was huge. I even forgot about camera, when mesmerized by the falls. Still I could not take pics, as water was splashing so much over us, impossible to take out camera..
wish could capture the screams
this is the tunnel which we crossed from above
waiting for the train
Our return train was from castle rock at 8pm. But the trouble was reaching Castle Rock. Dudhsagar is not a normal train stop. But still since lots of tourists come to visit the falls, train stops unofficially. Now the challenge is to actually board the train. You have to fight and board the train because of the huge crowd waiting here.
We had over an hour before the train arrives. We found out that its best to move ahead of the station and wait for the train some distance away from the station. We had our lunch and were waiting for the train. Then began raining heavily. I was completely drenched, and even though we were in rain from yesterday, still I was shivering.
After some we realized the train is coming, We got ready for the final thrill. But we had underestimated the adventure in boarding a train. The train was stopped much before its supposed to stop, that means much earlier from where we were waiting. Some guys had apparently forced it to stop there, thinking it may not stop. We ran towards the train, were shocked to see everyone hanging from the compartments. No way we could climb over them, with our heavy backpacks. We kept running past overflowing compartments. I was afraid if I can board the train, then at last we were relieved to find it was possible to board a compartment.
We hopped on, and enjoyed the rest of the journey sitting near doors.
The route which we followed. Click on the Placemarks for the details
