Wednesday 3 September, 2008

Gundya -Yedukumari Trek

My experience on day -2 of the trek from Gunya to Yedukumari Day 2 : The day started with my alarm wriggling my brain out early at five `o clock in the morning. You know, it's such a pain to come out of quilt at this part of the day especially when it's freezing cold out side. Finally I managed to be up and steady by 5.30. After a quick BF of bread and omelette we started the journey. We were accompanied by a forest guard and a local villager who were our guides. As we passed the river that we were enjoying the previous day inthe moonlight, a chill went down the spine. The river was full and we couldn't locate the rock that we were sitting on.We thanked in heart, the man, who, at the peak of his voice warned us about the water released from the upper dam.The guide told us to hurry as they'll release water in Kumaradhara river also every morning .This is the river that we have to cross to reach the mountain. Once it's flooded, all our plans will be in a major soup. Crossing this river was thrilling and -Thank God 1. Once on the other side of the river the first thing that got our attention was the stench of the elephant excreta. Meaning elephants had been there the previous night and may be still around if you're running a 7 and a 1/2. The bamboo vegetation in the surrounding was yet another testimony. This stretch of forest has all kinds of animals except the lion. Geographically this is an extension of Nagarhole wild life sanctuary. The forest guard was meant for locating these animals at a distance and to signal to us. No need totell that his hushing gesture was a major tamarind solution. So you can take this as Thank God2. Once on top, all the comrades felt the hunger calling. Meanwhile one of us was busy verifying the time at which the goods train left SubramanyaRd. As the Train had left the station 1hr15 mnts back and thedistance in between is just 25-30kms, we decided to start the track walk. The immediate one was a ½ Km tunnel. Then the railway ears amongst us told that they heard the sound of an approaching train.That fool of a driver was not blowing horn until he entered the tunnel on the other side. So we escaped a sorry crashing death by½ km. Thank God 3. This was just a harbinger of what was awaiting us further. So we stopped thanking god (4) and left our destiny to the almighty.I'm not going to tell about the bridges that we crossed for I think words will be insufficient to explain even the slightest of the feeling of that time. I'll just say that what you see in the photos is the different angles of the, first and the safest bridge that we crossed. After that everybody was busy crossing the bridges and tunnels that no photos were taken:)). I could hear some one telling "tunnel vitta bridge, bridge vitta tunnel-nu suthi suthiadikkiraangada…"
One moral of the trip was that every one was living at the present.There was no time to think about the hour next. What management books cannot do in years, this trek did in no time.Purposely I made it long. Great that you made it, to the last.