Kemmangundi Ride & trekking Hebbe Falls - A trip log from the yesteryears (From the file)

It was on the 7th of feb-2005 that me n my friends decided that we start trekking again.

I had always been a regular trekker in school. Having studied in TVS Academy,I had a lot of exposure to trekking, wildlife, adventures etc. but after school ,during my college days didn't have the opportunity to trek, in the sense that i didn't have like minded people for company ,coz all my friends were studying in different locations and that meant all of us didn't have holidays at once.

So even i was longing to go on a trek. My dear friend n I were brushing our teeth , when Spandan(my buddy) said "Hey Nav, lets go on a trek this weekend, lets chill out............. what say?" and the obvious answer from me was a big YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

In no time we were discussing places,possible guys joining us and stuff like that. we called up Sandy and he readily agreed ,but now we were three of us and needed another guy to join us to go on two bikes(Such was the bikers mindset back then). Just when we were scratching our heads , we saw Rajan coming out of his house and we shouted at him "Hey Rajan we r going on a trek, would u join us?" and he shouted back "I would love to................." and thats it, there was no looking back. I was browsing my memory to decide on a good trekking destination and what came to my mind was Kemmangundi in Chikamagalur district. i had been there while in school .

So the next day i told them about this place , but Rajan wanted to go to coorg and after a lot a discussion and argument we froze on kemmangundi. Spandan n I put up the budget and informed others. Spandan was getting his brand new PULSAR DTS-i and i offered to get my HH splendour , but sandy wanted to get his CT-100 brand new again, so it was decided that we were biking to kemmangundi. But unexpectedly sandy was not able to get his bike for the trek and i had given mine for service as it wasn't part of the ride plan, but there was Spandan for the rescue, he offered his (hamara)Bajaj. So both bikes belonged to Spandan on this trip.

It was on the 11-feb-05 at around 2:00am in the early morning ,we hit the road............................ the road to kemmangundi. we were all singing , shouting as the road belonged only to us at the part of the night.......

We Went through Tumkur, Tiptur, Arsikere, Birur and reached Kemmangundi the next day morning at around 11:30am. we had reserved accommodation at the KR hill-station maintained by the horticultural dept of Karnataka. We had reserved 2 cottages and surprisingly they charged us just 150 bucks per cottage. Two guys could stay in one.

We had our lunch at around 12:00noon. Even though we were very tired we made up our minds to go on a major trek the same day.In the next 15mins we were on our way to the Hebbe falls ,the major attraction at kemmangundi.There were 2 ways to reach there, one by jeeps and the other was to trek. And our unanimous choice was trekking. We were welcomed into the jungle by the chirping of the birds and the noise made by the crickets. It was adventurous getting into the forest, because the first step into it was itself was very risky and steep. As we didn't know the exact route to the Hebbe, all the guys risked my memory which dated back 7yrs(1998). The total distance was around 22 kms both ways. As went deeper we came across some coffee plantations which were occupied by the fellow humans.We were so tired we had to search for some water and luckily we did find a water pipe which was from hebbe to the coffee plantations. We quenched our thirst by drinking water to our hearts content.Then as we continued I made a wrong move when my memory gave in. We took a right turn which did look like a way but which wasn't to be. We realised this as we went quite some distance.Then we decided to continue hoping to find the way as we heard the water gushing from the HEBBE where water drops from around 275feet.That's a majestic one, trust me.......... Again we lost our way,this time it was even worse coz we met the dead end of the trail which we chose. We had to climb down a steep place which was almost vertical and at the end of it was a cliff. It was some kind of a VERTICAL LIMIT stunt. But sandy showed the way by climbing down. Then i followed and suceeded.Then it was the turn of spandan who was almost horror struck.We all could make out from his face that he was pretty scared . However being the adventurous guy that he is, he made it. And then came Rajan who almost climbed down like a TARZAN. We carried on and finally we realised we were lost again but this time it was a serious concern. I tried to recall but i wasn't able to - My memory had completely failed me. We could hear a bike(maybe an estate worker) zoom some where in the distance. It seemd like we were very near to the falls. But it was not to be. Still we heard the water gushing, but when we tried to search for a way we realised that it was a broken water pipe.

With just about an hour left for the sun to set it was an issue to think about.We tried finding the way out and saw some really deep caves .Certainly some looked like they belonged to panthers and bears. Certainly scary...... we felt thirsty again and luckily found a stream.We quenched our thirst by drinking water from a stream.We were all quiet and were trying to find the way out of this ‘SCARY TRAIL’,and sandy did it again, he found the way back to the main jeep track. We were very much relieved to be out of the hostile situation. We kept walking along the jeep trail and after some distance, we saw another trekking trail taking a right turn into the forest and this time I recalled this is the one in which we had to go. So we descended down and mind u it was a pretty steep one.As we climbed down the sound of the water gushing down became very loud. And this time we could also feel the water droplets on our faces. I was damn sure that we were very close to the ‘hebbe’. But the clock struck 5, and we had to hurry things up, we almost ran to the falls, but again the descend to the foot of the falls was scary and dangerously slippery. And there it was the ‘MAJESTIC HEBBE’………….Shouts of “wow,wonderful,majestic,marvelous…..”And all the possible adjectives echoed ……………. We shouted at the top of our voices. And w couldn’t wait to get to into the water. And freakkkkkk, the water was damn cold. But that couldn’t stop the trekkoholics from jumping into the water. Though it was February and there were no leeches around this time,the rocks had thick algae covers and it was very slippery. That meant we had to watch our steps. But Spandan was not going to listen and he wanted to go right beneath the falls and he dared to do it. We were all lost in our own worlds, splashing water on each other, taking cold dips every now and then and damn...we realised that spandan is missing. When we looked around for him……. We saw him slide down the rock, right at the foot of the falls and he vanished. Boyyyyyy we were all scared and shouted at him, and just when I took a step ahead to find him, there he came from the back of that rock, had actually slipped and suffered some minor bruises. And again we were playing around , we had a nice time or rather a CHILL time.

And just when we came out of the water , we realized we had to walk back to the KR hill station and that was a gud 11 kms . We were all tired and had no more gas left in our tanks. How we wished we had our tents and sleeping gears with us at that moment. But the matter of fact was , we had to get back to our cottages. Little did we know that this trek would strip us off our energy , which normally is very high. We had ridden our bikes the whole night and without even a nap, we had started trekking. But we had an option , we knew that the last jeep which picks up ppl from the estate would leave by 6:30pm and we had 15 mins to make up the 1 km from the falls to the estate bungalow. We had some biscuits and apples left wid us, we hogged them and our batteries were recharged, atleast mine…………….. we then started jogging and I was carrying the rugsack, coz everyone else were dragging their feet- quite literally. We were almost near the estate when we heard the jeep start its engine, ghosh if we missed it we had it, coz we didn’t even have torches with us and we missed the trail in the broad daylight, boyyy my heart skipped a beat, when I imagined all this. We heard the jeep move and all our guys lost hope of making it to the jeep. And then I had no other option than to unleash my athletic skills, though I was a marathon runner, I had to sprint this time and it was for a serious reason and guess what, I did it Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I caught the jeep and had it waiting for the guys to arrive and they were all saying “ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, thank god”,and all those kinda sigh of relief stuff. We got into the jeep and were shocked to see a 16yr old guy driving the jeep. He stated the engine and vroomed into the thickets of the jungle. It was 6:45 pm and it was almost dark. Sandy n I were sitting in the front. And we started chatting with the driver asking him as to how many years he is driving , who taught him to drive, wasn’t it illegal to drive before 18.?????? And that guy asked me for my shades(Oakley) , it was actually a dull orange shade and he wanted to wear it and drive. We thought , he should have gone nuts…. Coz it was difficult to see with naked eyes itself. But he wanted to try and I had to give it to him. Lemme tell u, he is one hell of a driver, he knew exactly what he was doing and those steep curves , especially when the track is loaded with pebbles(read big stones) it makes it even more tougher to drive, but he was experienced, that gave us a fair idea as to how many years he must have been driving , yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!He started driving ever since he was 10, so he had 6 yrs of driving experience under his belt. His cleaner was around 10 yrs old… er….. young.

It was a nice jolting drive , through thick bush and just when we were nearing the cottage, the jeep failed to climb a steep terrain and guess vat the cleaner did????????He had two big stones handy with him, he quickly jumped out of the vehicle and kept those stones right behind the rear wheels, so the driver had some cushion to move the vehicle up , even then it was difficult, so we alighted from the jeep as well so that he could move the jeep easily. After a lot of attempts they managed to get the jeep up the hill and the cottage was just 100mtrs away, so we gave him the money- 50 bucks per head and thanked him. From there we walked with our eyes closed till the cottage. It was around 8pm and we had to order for food. There was a decent restaurant, but we get only veg food readily available. But we wanted to eat chicken and he offered to cook any one dish(with chicken) and also demanded that we need to take one full chicken. We readily agreed coz we were reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hungryyyyyyyyyyyy.We ordered rotis (25 of them) and chilli chicken with gravy. They promised to deliver within 9:30pm. So we had to control our hunger with the left over snacks.

The doorbell rang , it was just 9pm and to our pleasant surprise , the dinner arrived to our cottage. Probably this is the only time I can recall something in INDIA had been delivered on/before time. And we didn’t waste any time before we got our hands on the hot rotis and the spicy chillichicken. Nobody talked for about 20 mins , it was totally silent. The silence was occasionally broken with a “wow, aaahhhhh, tasty” …..We hogged our dinner and were just talking about the IF’s and but’s had we lost our way….The clock struck 11 and the shutters on our eyes automatically closed coz we had not slept for more than 24 hrs. ………

We were awake the next day by 6 in the morning and after answering our nature calls, we were on our way to the Z-point . It was a view point around 3kms from the KR hill station. The view from Z-point was breathtaking. We felt as if we were on the top of this world. We had hoisted the tri-coloured flag when we had been here the last time from school. After recalling all those sweet memories at the top, we left back to our cottages. The view from the top was a treat to our eyes………………Back in the cottage, we packed our bags and it was time to say good bye to kemmangundi for now………..Soon we were on our way back, sandy & I on the PULSAR and spandan and rajan on (hamara) BAJAJ.I was enjoying my ride down and the josh machine(pulsar) was responding well. Spandan & rajan were trying to catch up with us and trust me bajaj exceeded our expectations, it was almost keeping pace with the pulsar. We decided to come back via chikamagalur. The road was awesome and sandy’s piece of advice was lost in air as we were ripping , closing the throttle. We paid a visit to the temples at belur & halebid and were back on track again. We felt damn hungry and we were searching for a nice dhaba. We decided to cover maximum distance before it gets dark. coz the Bangalore-mangalore road is very dangerous for two wheelers, especially at night. It was almost 6pm and we had to stop coz hunger overtook time………….Luckily we found a nice dhaba, it was clean and seemed like just the right place. We settled down to eat and it was our 1st priority at that moment. It was around 8pm by the time we finished our lunner(lunch + dinner).We were about 130 kms from Bangalore , we exchanged little bit of caution and hit the road again. we had to get back home , coz the next day was Monday and we had to get back to business. We stopped for tea at Gubbi at 10pm, we had been riding slow and steady. The stretch from Hassan to Gubbi was more prone to accidents. Nothing to blame on the road though. We washed our faces, sipped tea and were back on track again. At around 00:30 we reached our homes and the long ride had taken its toll on our backs.The next day, when we printed the photos and shared the experience with other friends and family , it was well worth it. We felt refreshed , rejuvenated and got back to our daily stuff with a lotsa energy……………And guess what ????????????We were already planning for the next trip ……………….