Trip to Karkala, Sita falls, Vonakeabbi falls and Agumbe

Trip to Karkala, Sita falls, Vonakeabbi falls and Agumbe

This was a unique trip with the 3^rd years pleading the second years to come to the trip with a lot of members giving a lot of insensible reasons. We had booked a mini bus for the trip as the numbers were less. We were around 24 members without even a single girl.

The planned takeoff of the trip was at 5:45, in which case we would have got a good sunrise at Karkala. Unfortunately, the day being Shivarathri we had to wait for two members (almost infinitely) for about 1 hour and finally began the journey without them at 6:45 am. We then set out towards Karkala on the way we saw the sunrising near the bridge at Mulky. We reached Karkala around 7:50. We visited the Gommateshwara Statue there, picked some snaps had a nice view of the Western
Ghats and surrounding villages. We then had our breakfast at Sagar Hotel.

We left Karkala around 9:00 towards our next destination viz Sita falls(Koodluthirtha). We had to take a deviation from the Hebri Someshwara road and from here go around 8kms to the last house before the falls. A large bus would have made us walk around 12kms up and down but the minibus left us having to walk only 2kms up and down. Just before getting into the forest to walk through Sita falls we see a splendid falls far away in the forest(ie not our destination). We walked through the forest and reached Sita falls in 20 minutes. The water there was shivering cold and all the members had a dip in the water and played in it. People enjoyed for around 45 minutes in the water and then started walking back reluctantly. It was around 12:00pm when we reached the bus.

We then went to a small hotel were we had booked our lunch before itself(a day earlier). It was around 1:15pm when we reached the hotel. We had our lunch there and few of us went around Hebri drinking cool drinks, eating sweet pan etc. Then we started moving to Someshwara for our next destination from where we had to trek to Vonakeabbi falls (relatively new falls to NITK considering we were the second team to visit this, this is a very popular destination for trips now). The falls is around 3kms into the forest from Someshwara. We asked for a guide from a shop near the temple who would lead us to the falls. We started our trip from here at 3pm with strict guidelines to everyone who was coming along who walked back from where ever he was at 4pm (so that we do not miss the sunset scenery from Agumbe). The trek to the falls was a real tiring one with people having to climb steep hills of around 60 degree(approx) from the ground level. While climbing we met a few trek enthusiasts who had taken a full day for the trek. We continued our trek and a few of us lost our way in between while few others decided against climbing (seeing the steepness) and the remaining reaching the stream. We get a very beautiful first glance of this falls which is along the Udupi Chickmagalur border from here. Then we started climbing, walking through the rocks along the stream to reach the base of this divine falls(gives you the divine happiness). Again we reached here in various groups depending on speed. It was around 4:15pm by then. We started walking back after taking a few snaps towards our bus. We reached our bus around 5:10pm.

We had a small tea break before resuming our trip to Agumbe sunset point. On reaching Agumbe sunset point we were greeted by clouds covering the sun, monkeys and few other tourists. It was 6:00pm by then. The journey atop the Agumbe ghats is itself an experience. We get around 14 hairpin curves along while climbing. We get a breath taking view of Vonakeabbi falls(the one just visited) from 2 points along the road. On the other side all along the road we get a splendid view of the plains of Udupi district covered with a majority of forests and paddy fields. The clouds covering the Sun seem to have decided not to let us have a view of the sun setting. So we waited for around 15 minutes and then started moving down in the bus. Just as we had negotiated the second hair pin curve from the top, the sun came out of the clouds. All of us started shouting and asking the bus driver to stop the bus, who agreed reluctantly. He stopped a little further after the third hair pin curve. We got down took snaps had a view of the sun setting down and then got back into the bus to resume our journey back to the college. We had our dinner at Sonu dhaba and returned to college at 9.30pm.

The amazing part of this trip was time maintenance.

The enjoyment was as usual with Antakshari, Cassette Player, dances.