A group of 13 jobless people started from Mangalore on a Saturday early morning. Reached Kollur via bus, had lunch there and then hired 2 jeeps to take us to the Kodachadri base.
We started the hike at the odd time @ around 2.30 in the afternoon. The stomach was full and asking for nap and at the same time the sun was straight up on our head shining as bright as it can. We took around 3.5hrs for the hike. Few of us had to really sweat it out to reach the peak as the tent material was pretty heavy. But, there were couple of places on the way where lime juice and butter milk was available to quench our thirst.
When we reached the peak, there were already around 20 people waiting for the sunset view. Since there was ample time for the sunset, we concentrated on setting up the tent and collecting some firewood for the fire in the night. We were so energetic that we collected fire wood that would last for couple of more nights even after our useJ.
After the sunset we climbed down couple of kilometers to the small hotel to have the dinner. Now the weather had completely reversed. It was really hot in the afternoon but by night it was very chill and windy. It was so much windy that all the light weight objects in our bag including the half-filled water bottles were flying off. Then we sat around the fire and started playing mafia. The game continued almost till 12 in the night. Kannan would have enjoyed it the most as every time we voted him out in the first round itselfJ. We had to do a lot of work put off the fire before we sleep as it was surrounded by dry grass.
The real problem was sleeping. We had only 2 tents, smaller one which can accommodate 4 people and a little bigger one for 5 people. Nitin, Vikas, Dasa and Don opted to sleep out. The wind was getting lot of sand with it which was falling on our face. Later in the night Nitin entered the tent as 6th person not being able to sleep outside. Don was found sleeping with his cooling glass on to avoid the sand stormJ.
Next day we got up early for the sunrise. This is one of the good things about this place; one can see both sunrise and sunset from here. Then we came back to the same hotel where we had dinner, but this time it was for breakfast. The return journey was quick and we reached the base within 1.5hrs. We called the same jeep guy to take us back to Kollur. The delay he made to reach us helped us to play few more mafia rounds. We had lunch @ Kollur and headed back to Mangalore with lot of pleasant memories.
For most of us it was nth time @ Kodachadri but it was very much enjoyable. Lot of jokes, witty dialogues and leg pulling sessions made it yet another memorable journey for the GypsiesJ.
Gypsies participants: Achalesh J, Vinay Adiga, Nitin Kumar, Sudhir Dongre, Ashwin R. Kamath, Jayakrishna KR, Udaya Sheshadri, Vijaydas, Kannan, Murali.V.G, Vikas Bodke, Prem P, Bala Manikandan.
Date: 29th/30th January 2011
Route: Mangalore – Udupi – Kollur (Approximately 130km)
Requirements:
· Torch Lite
· Sleeping bag & tent
· Hat / Shades
· A warm clothing / jacket
· Camera
Super and keep going
ReplyDelete