Bangalore to Beaches - ByCycle - Day 4 - Wotz Ur Aim

Date: 28th Dec, 2015
Start: Agumbe (0800 Hrs)
End: Agumbe (1800 Hrs)
Distance: 23 Kms ( ByCycle - 8 Kms , Walk 15 Kms)
Terrain: Flat , Thick Forest enroute to OnakeHebbe 

Padsale was the place chosen by us to sleep last night. Padsale used to be there in all the Big houses earlier where they will host the guest. So we were here as perfect guest in “Doddamane”. This was a most homely stay after the 2 days of temple stay.

 Padsale @ DoddaMane

 Rooms @ Doddamane

  Dormitory @ Doddamane

Sanjay, who heads the Agumbe Vikasana Manch was in Doddamane and we had got into some healthy discussion with him last night. We had decided we will be doing some cleaning activity around Agumbe village this morning. Agumbe is well connected to every one who has seen Malgudi Days, and any activity in this village felt homely. This serial was one of the best serial some one would have seen in their child hood and would never miss to see if its screened again on Television.

Doddamane and streets of Agumbe are couple of main attraction in the serial. No one would forget Swami of Malgudi Days. We wanted to make some little contribution for this place and we picked up some broom and plastic pickers [Custom designed by Sanjay to pick up the small plastics].

We got up by 0600 Hrs and joined hands with Sanjay to clean up the main road of Agumbe. We felt very sad to see people throwing away all the plastics around this beautiful place. We collected almost 5 big bags of trash and gave it for Sanjay to process it further. One thing we realised was the amount of plastic is more from the “one rupee toffee” and “guktha”. Hope the governmanet will take some serious action on these two things.Sanjay does lot of social activities around Agumbe. The main aim of  “Agumbe Vikas manch” is to keep Agumbe clean and attractive. We just added 2 cents to his vision.

The Breakfast was ready by 0730 AM, and we had a super heavy breakfast composing of Upma and Rice bath. Sanjay suggested us to visit Onakke Hebbe falls. We preferred exploring this beauty by walk and that was the right decision. It was almost 6Kms walk for Onake Hebbe falls, 2 in the main road and the rest inside the thick forest to the right. This thick forest was the reason for highest rainfall in Agumbe. On the main road after walking for around 2km towards Sunset point you will find a forest gate to the right of you and you need to enter the gate and walk straight for almost 3-4km to reach the water fall. Dont take any deviation when you see any steps in between. You have to walk straight until you hear the sound of the water fall and steps going down. There may be couple of trees fallen down which looks like a blockage, but continue in the road. After reaching here Sid was very happy as he found the water much cleaner than Bisleri. The water was pristine flowing through the thick jungles of Western ghats. The water fall and valley view is just amazing. Make sure you have a valid ticket to enter this gate, else the forest department may make noise later.

 Huge Tree with branching at bottom

 The wrong route enroute Onake Hebbe

Natural mushrooms on the Decay

We had one more friend Sanjay whom we met in Doddamane accompanied us thoroughout the journey till the Falls. It was quite good discussion with him about the nature and current problems of Bangalore.  One of his suggestion on afforestation was quite impressive and it goes like this. He suggested to make seed balls using clay to cover the seed, throw in places where you find ideal for growing trees. Durning rain the seed would come out of the clay and become a sapling and a tree in future if its not disturbed. There are too many musquitos inside the forest and its preferabble to take a repellent if musquito's are fond of you.

Nature Walk inside the Forest

 

 Steps going down to Onake Hebbe

2 Layered Onake Hebbe Falls

 @Mouth of the waterfall

ValleyView of WaterFall

 Loki

 Sunil

 Way back with the Kids

We were back in Doddamane for the lunch. Once again an awesome lunch which made us to mandate for a nap. While discussing with the Uncle inside Doddamane we realized Uncles Son and Lokesh were close friends. Its really small world.

Sid was almost sleeping and we didnt wake him up. We started towards ARRS, Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, an organisation which has done lot of research on KingCobra and other reptiles in the western ghats. Sapna, the co-ordinator who was volutering in the organization helped us about the different programme they do have for us. After a quick trail inside the ARRS, in hope of finding some King Cobra we were back to the base station in 45 mins of time with no sightings. Hope the King Cobras were really afraid of us. Sapna had hinted us that we would also sight Dracos in this areas and we had our eyes hooked to the Big trunks, but no luck.

On the way back we reached Agumbe Vikas Manch office and Sanjay showed us couple of videos of Malgudi Days. It reminded of our childhood watching those episodes. Panipuri was tempting and we couldn't control having it in the Agumbe circle. The Dinner was ready by now and 2 plates of pani puri inside the tummy didn't restrict us from having this awesome dinner. Since it was getting Cold Sanjay suggested us to put the tent and it was worth listening to him.

Though we had a nice tent, Padsale of Doddamane to sleep, we couldn't sleep well for the night as the question from one of the small kid kept bothering us. "What's your aim of Cycling, Uncle?" bothered us more than those uphills of Malnad.

The best answer we could thought of was "Our aim was to inspire more kids like you to Cycle to save our mother earth".

 ThinkWindow @Doddamane