Honn-e-mardu

My initial thought after hearing the name Honnemardu ,was that the place must be having some strong influence from urdu literature with the word resonating in the likes of mughal-e-azam, jashn-e-baharaa, ibn-e-insha. To the fact the place got its name from trees, most of which are currently submerged as part of linganamakki dam project in early 1960s.

All we knew was that we are going to enjoy for next two days no matter what happens to the proposed plans. The onward journey was a mixture of hope, fun, laughter and excitement.

The Day begun with a warm welcome from Christine and Ashok, the trainers for our program. Had a relishing breakfast in the open air theatre and got ready for what seemed like a sunny day.

Campus walk

Robert Berman the famous Canadian artist had spent around 6 months learning the local tradition of painting with natural colors made out of mud and leaves .The walk was steady but was already giving us hint about forthcoming events. Medical camp on top of the hill was the only link to urban land giving us the slim chance of catching mobile-network.

The lion’s and the tiger’s of our group had more to roar as the bird’s in bird sanctuary went on a strike. By the time Christine was already on a song, enjoying with her last adventure group of her program in India , Ashok had already started playing pranks among us.

Swimming/diving

Swimming was taken as first step to acclimatize ourselves to the conditions. The fear about the presence of snakes and crocs in the water were negated by the trainers. Swimming was not a new territory to me ,but sustaining cramps in both the legs while swimming was a new experience. We all swam to the nearest island trying our own innovated strokes in swimming as all were given a life jacket for safety. Diving from a submerged tree was exciting, which made us raise the height of dive ,to reach from 12-15 feet above the water.

Canoeing

3-5 seater round shaped boat, which seems so simple when people ride on it. But was harder to control to the beginners. Situation made us to learn quickly, as our upcoming task was to sail through it to island , which was 2-3 kms away.

Camping In Island

It was the time when the Sun was calling the day off, but we were busy collecting firewood for our night stay. The energy was so much among us, within few seconds we could witness entire dead trees being brought to be turned into fire later. My childhood craze of building small house and staying in it was revisited, this time it was tent.

With the campfire on, we started with Dumb charades which looked like never ending tale, which gave us a chance to have dinner under open sky. The policy among us was not to waste time sleeping in the trip, which made us to get up at 6 in the morning. Had a glimpse of sunrise, erased the marks of our existence in the island. played Holi with ashes left out from campfire, sailed back to adventure point.

Trekking

Bheemana hejje(footmark of Bheema) ,the spot on top of the hill, which took us around two hours to trek. Not the hardest of trek but was good enough for a change from aquatic events.

Rowing

Going around in the 2 seater-narrow shaped boat was last part of our program, paddling in water ,I was already getting some nightmares of next days work and traveling back to city life.

It was almost at 8 in the night, sharing our feedbacks with trainers,we decided to take the return trip. The tough part was saying goodbye to people who had been like our family for past 36 hours. We were all seated back in our vehicle and one synchronized voice I could hear was to switch off internal lights. I was able to see few among us trying to hide emotions, followed by silence for sometime, which speaks volumes about the bonding that we had with the hosts.

To me this adventure-journey was an illustration of how naturally we can enjoy ourselves forgetting all the luxuries of modern life.

Oho-ho

Abhilash

About Adventure :

Place : Honnemardu, nearest bus stop Taluguppa, shimoga district.

Route : 400 km From Bangalore via road

Date : 13-16 March 2009

Group : 10 + 2 (trainers)

Christine, Bharath(palla), Ashwin, Vicky, Reddy part of my winning team in DC.

Arun, Rajath, Vinodh, Ashok, Ananth, Arvind GS for competing with us.

My sincere thanks to Manjula for giving us such good food, Christine for being so kind in helping us through each step, Ashok for giving us brotherly warmth and Arun for his splendid camera work.

P.S : Title of the blog in connection with word spliting exercise part of DC in island.

Oho-ho : Key words used among trainers to communicate about their existence.

Lost In Woods

With the central and state budgets around the corner while the world is sinking deeper into recession, while most of the bollywood movies are getting thumbs down with cinema halls going for alternative options, with no good cricket matches being broadcast live, the very air that we breathe was choking to stay indoors. It was a perfect transition of winter to summer and we couldn’t have asked for anything better. A group of 14 youngsters who hardly knew each other, decided to go on a trek to quite an uncommon destination for trekking at this time of the year.

It was the 13^th night of Feb 2009, we were all in a mazda(13-seater vehicle) with our trekking bags and 4 tents ready to leave Bengaluru with hopes of a safe return on 15^th Feb 2009. The first stop was Belthangadi , a small agro based town where we had our breakfast the next morning. Loading our growling tummies, we had a nice start. We moved on to the nearby Navoor forest range. The day started with people staring at us, as if some seasoned trekkers were in the town with their accessories on. The trek route was untouched for past 6 months. With an amature guide to accompany us, “not to fear dead bodies” , “beware of Naxalites” , “be careful with bears”, “do not hurt wild animals”  and “avoid leeches” were the calls given by the forest ranger. The wind, rain and sun gods had perfect blessing on us.

Usually travel brings creative thinking , this time around it was heights of optimism for most of us with the expectation of 14 young girls joining the trek as it was the day when  St. Valentine took his last breath. Opting to trek through the most difficult routes in Kudremukh ranges had its consequences on us. The steep hills which can put most of good stamina down, after crossing first few miles some of heavy builds of our team were struggling to breathe, but the morale was high to some how reach the peak.

To find a water stream was a strong inspiration for most of us which kept us alive and on our feet, the plan was to halt near a water spot . The guide was a great motivator indirectly. Whenever we asked him, we were only 3 kms away from water stream,but that was not the reality. Bothered about our limited resource of water in our kits, had to keep listening to him.

The trekking was never ending as stars and moon had already started alarming us by showing their presence. We had the un-intentional pleasure of walking through the woods during night. The path had given us enough evidence of ashes only to show a live demonstration of a forest burning into smokes right in front of us over a nearby hill. We had our own imaginations of reacting to various kind of fauna, thanks!! none of them had any plans to attack us. As this was our first outing as a bunch of new friends, we chanted our way by phrases that kept us motivated like “Bharath Mata ki jai”. Next time we will have to find a chatter box during a trek!.

A trek or trip wouldn’t be interesting unless something unusual happens, this time it was Lobo’s villa for us, an abandoned house built around late 80s, totally unused atleast past 10 years, was camping point for us, had his kitchen renovated and cooked noodles, the taste of which would be remembered for lifetime. Noodles and bread jam were staple diet for our trek as we couldn’t find any other alternative,had to stick with it.
Our minds were half-happy after trek and half-reluctant to move out of the woods, which had a wonderful hosting for us past 36 hours. The time we had our food cooked by villagers, whom we met just outside the forest, was a simple and a never to be forgotten lunch.

One fine day when we sit with our grandkids and share our experiences, we would definitely cherish these moments and hopefully even they will be enriched with this experience. These 30 km may sound like 30 steps after a while, but the memories can only get richer as it will serve the rest of our life to cherish.

Adios,

Abhilash

 

About trek :

Place : Kudremukh national forest reserve ,Karnataka

Starting Point : Navoor (South Canara) : 350 km from Bangalore via road

Camping : Lobo’s Villa

End point : Mullodi (Chikmaglur)

Trek Length : 30+ km.

Nearest Hospital : 8-10 km from either Start or End point.

Date : 13-16 Feb 2009

Group : 14 + guide

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