Nagari 3, 1 Nov 2008

On Friday evening (Oct 31), Angel and I were a bit nervous with Angel calling people to confirm their participation. The support from the car leads was nice, where we were able to co-ordinate with all participants and cross check. This was the best group of 1 day trek participants in terms of punctuality - we did not have delays waiting for people anywhere - and hit the breakfast place on time

We started driving towards Nagari when Anubala's car developed a snag and A bike and a car (Hyundai Verna) rushed to help.. Bala helped out the damsels in distress by doing a 10 minute spare tyre change and in the meanwhile the rest of the cars were waiting ahead, taking pictures of a large group of ducks being herded to cross the road..

(You will soon see Viki's picture of those ducks which has become the wall paper on so many PCs in my office and is getting international fame already)..


We hit base camp and considered taking a local guide given the fact that we had to search around for the route twice during the trial trek but dropped the idea when they proposed a different route. We started walking towards the hill through the fields with me leading the way with Ramki, Raghuvir and Naresh and had a group of people following closely behind. There were very few first timers in the group and we had Viki, Selva and Angel ensuring everybody was taken care of at the end. Bala, Selva and Udhay were in the middle group. The initial short steep climb took some effort but the gradient dropped very soon. This segment had the green jade like rocks and fossilized tree roots / shale..

We had 2 uphill and 2 downhill walks to get to the first temple and waterfall and went above past that one to go to the second waterfall and temple. There were beautiful butterflies in the area and the sun rays filtered through the trees creating beautiful images on the little streams..We had a target to reach the temple not later than 1 pm, and the first set of people reached at about half past 12 and had everyone there at 1. People jumped into water and splashed around.

A few divers experimented and learnt what dead leaves at the bottom of a natural pool can do.

Little fish bit me, and a few others had the experience.. The waterfall was refreshing. A group went up above the waterfall and took pictures/ posed for pictures and had lunch up there. The rest of us stayed close to the fall and ate our lunch sharing it with the monkeys and the dogs. We decided to leave at around 2:30 pm and started climbing again with a target to reach base camp at 6 pm. We walked with no rest breaks and reached the confusing 'Mani' tree at 5:30 pm. We rested , letting Bala make the calculations to settle accounts and then walked to the cars. We let the lone biker Srivats leave, settled the accounts and then started the drive back to the city.. 12 of us celebrated trek completion in Chennai Deluxe and had a whale of a time..

A lovely way of spending a day in a weekend.. Thanks to all those who came - thanks for the company, hope to see you all soon in a trek..







Written by Vinodha.

Organised by Vinodha and Angel

Participants: Chris Wilson,Vikram J, Selva kumar, Rajalakshmi Gajapathy, Madhu Hanumantha, Srinidhi Hande, Manivannan Gandhiraj, Bhupesh Pande, Suresh kanna, Radha Viswanathan, Suresh Kumar, Gomathisankar, Gopal, Anubala, Sunitha, Kamal, Ramana, Lilford, Jegadheesh Mohan, Ramakrishnan, Raghuvir Reddy, Selva Pandian, Udhay, Kalainesan, Naresh Kumar, Balamurali krishna, Srivatsan Murali.




Image Library:
Vikram
Bala
Naresh
Kanna
Suresh
Mani
Kamal