Sakleshpur track trek

For a long time I have been wanting to do this trek on abondoned railway track. This track from Donigal to Subramanya is also known as "green route" and its a must-do for a trekker. I have been telling my fellow trekkers to make it sometime but since some of them had already done some part of this trek, they were not quite enthusiastic. However, I kept on waiting patiently and kept on convincing some of them to do it before the tracks open up for use again. The work is going on for quite sometime to open up the track.

My dream came true finally. It was a new year gift to me. Five of us (Me, Kumar, Viswesh, Siddharth and Jayashri) planned to do it on the first weekend of January. We booked the tickets for Donigal on Friday night bus. Reached Donigal next day early in the morning. From there our trek on tracks started. We waited on the Donigal station for the daylight and as soon as there was enough light, we started walking on the tracks. From Donigal to Yedakumeri, it was a trek of 18km. Our plan was to reach Yedakumeri on the first day and start from there on the next day to reach Sribagilu which was another 18km trek. We also though of extending the trek to Subramanya if time permits. Subramanya was another 10km trek from Sribagilu. With this plan, our first day walk started around 6.30 in the morning. Since all five of us were photographers (or budding photographers) as well, we knew we will have to stop a lot to capture the beauty of the 'green route' in our camera in addition to capturing it by our eyes. So, the walk continued with frequent stops for photos. We had enough time in our hands and so we didnt mind stopping so frequently. We got to see a lovely morning sky just after 5 minutes walk and everybody's camera was out. I also took a couple of shots and while I was keeping the camera back into the bag, didnt notice the track I was walking on and fell down on the track. Nothing happend (though next day morning I realized some pain on my right knee and saw some black marks on the left knee only after reaching Bangalore) and we soon started walking again ! At around 8am we encountered our first bridge. From a distance it looked beautiful and green (it was painted green) ! We spent some time shooting the bridge. Another half an hour walk and we saw a nice small river. We all were again ready with the camera. After finishing that I couldnt resist myself from removing my shoes and enjoying the cool water. We spent some 20 minutes there and then we were back on tracks again. Around 9.30am we saw another small river flowing under a bridge and we stopped here, brushed our teeth and did some more photography. Another half an hour walk and we saw the first tunnel. There were altogether 45 tunnels from Donigal to Sribagilu (18 till Yedakumeri) and the length varied from 50m to 572m. Inside the longer tunnels it was pitch dark. One simply cant cross them without torch or some kind of light and unfortunately I didnt have anything ! So throughout the trek, I was dependent on Jayashri's torch. She was my 'tunnel partner' :) So, the walk continued, sometimes just plain railway track, sometimes tracks full of gravels making it painful to walk on them. Sometimes there were bridges and sometimes tunnels. I didnt count the number of bridges or tunnels. I was enjoying the walk, the darkness inside the tunnels, the height of the bridges :) Some of the bridges were scary and we were extremely careful while crossing them. On the first day itself we crossed the longest tunnel, the length was 572m. It was completely dark inside and we could hear the noises made by the bats living inside these tunnels. Sometimes the track inside the tunnels were slimy and slippery because of the bats and we had to be very careful not to slip on them ! We could manage to cross the tunnels and bridges without any accident. We also saw lots of small streams flowing down the hills throughout the way. With all the stops for photography, tiredness, food etc we still could manage to reach Yedakumeri station by 2.30pm. Since the work is going on, there were lots of people in the station and we enquired them about spending the night there. After some conversation with them, we managed to get a old room with broken wooden windows. And that was to be our "apartment", as one the guys told me there, for the night. We spread some newspapers on the floor and immediately crashed ! After about an hour we got up, washed ourselves in the nearby stream. It was almost 6pm by then. We finished our dinner aorund 7pm. Then we spread the sleeping mats and took out our sleeping bags. While the other four went out to enjoy the night sky and some chat with the locals, I happily slipped into my sleeping bag and was soon asleep.

It was 5.30am when I got up the next day. The others were also getting up slowly. It was decided previous night that we will start as soon as there is light. It was 6.30am by the time we packed our bags and were ready to leave after freshening up. The scenary in this strech was more beautiful than the previous day. And in this we got the longest bridge of the whole journey. It was more than 200m I think. We were scared sure, but we did spend some time on the bridge and posed for the cameras :) Another one hour walk from here and we were at the last tunnel, tunnel no. 45 ! It was 2.30pm when we reached Sribagilu station. Though some of us were ready to make it till Subramanya, Jayashri and Siddharth didnt agree. So we rested there for sometime, enquired about the exit route from the station. There was a jeep route just after the station. After about an hour of rest, we took that jeep route and started climbing down. It was more than 4km down the route before we were to hit the road. After some climbing down we saw a nice stream. We halted there, had our lunch and took some more rest. Then again, start climbing down... After sometime saw one jeep coming down the trail. The driver offered us lift to the road and we readily took it. Stuffed ourselves with the backpacks on the back of the jeep. The road was still 2km away and it saved us some time. In about 10 minutes we were on the road. We started walking towards Subramanya while attemping to stop some vehicle. Subramanya was 15km away. There were lots of private vehicles going to Subramanya and none of them will stop. After some more walk we got a KSRTC bus and reached Subramanya by 5pm. First thing was to book our tickets back to Bangalore and rent a room for couple of hours to wash ourselves off the dirt accumulated on us for two days. All the KSRTC buses were full. Luckily we got the tickets in a private bus (Kukkeshri travels) and it was to start at 10.15pm. Then we got a room and one by one went on to take bath. By 7pm we all were fresh except Siddharth. There was a clear view of Shesha Parvata from the hotel and to think that we were on top of that hill just three weeks back ! Anyway, memories aside, once we were ready, we thought of visiting the Subramanya temple except Siddharth. He wanted to use the time to take a relaxing bath ! However, the temple was very crowded and we didnt feel like joining the queue to get a glimpse of the God. Around 8pm we had our dinner in the same hotel where we had our lunch after Kumara parvata trek. Same meal and it again tasted heavenly :) We were back to the room by 8.45pm. Boarded the bus in exact time though it started a little late. I was soon asleep and didnt realize that the bus broke down sometime in the night and didnt move for about two hours :) Reached Bangalore at 7am instead of 5am. I was in my room at 7.30am. very tired but very happy...

I was planning to write a more detailed write-up but I am bound by time ! So, dont think I will anything more than what I have written in this blog. One of the fellow trekkers, however, might write it. Also, there are lots of materials available on the net about sakleshpur trek. Give a google search of 'sakleshpur trek' and see the amazing result :)

Photos of the trek