Gokarna To Honnavara trek
We met around 8:45 at the Kempegowda bus stand (KBS). Except manja, everybody else was a stranger to me. It would turn out that we would get to know each other very well during the course of an exciting and adventurous trek. The group included ten people in total: Myself, Manja, Amin, Pramod, Nishant, Ayush, Harit, Mahadev, Manish and Nihit.
The bus departed KBS around 21:15 hours. The route to Gokarna is one of the most scenic routes I have traveled. Reaching Shimogha, the bus travels through Jog falls, the Gersoppa Ghat section, Honnavara, Kumta and finally our destination, Gokarna. All the passengers in the bus might have guessed from our backpacks if not from our long, never ending conversations that we were on some sort of a trek. It did turn out to be some trek in the end, something that I’ll remember for a long time.
Gokarna is famous for its temple, which has a Shiva lingam. The story of how the lingam got there is itself interesting. We visited the temple thinking of a quick darshana of the lord. It turned out that the poojari would force us into offering a full course pooja. After the pooja, we were even offered temple lunch, which we calmly turned down since we were already late on the trek and the afternoon sun was turning on the heat. We finished a quick breakfast at Pai hotel. This would be our last scrumptious escapade. The next two days would be filled with extreme conditions, a blazing hot sun, very little or no water, dry food and of course a refreshing breeze from the sea carrying droplets of sea water which kept us going till the end.
The trek started off on Gokarna beach. All of us were thrilled at the sight of the sea and the hot sand, which was difficult to walk on, never seemed a hurdle. Once close to the wet sand, walking got easier. Given a chance all us were ready to take off our clothes and jump into the water. But we had to wait, till we camped on a beach that evening. Till then it was satisfying to just watch the shoreline from a distance, and from the mountains around the beach. The shoreline of Gokarna beach extended beyond what our naked eyes could see.
Crossing the Gokarna beach was easy. We had to climb a mountain, and walk across a flat dry piece of land to get to our next destination: kudle beach. The only trekkers we found on the way were foreigners, who kept wishing and saying namasthe, in a par-desi accent. Kudle beach has a nice, scenic approach. The path leading down to the beach from the mountain is covered on both sides by thick vegetation. The path looked like an arcade with huge lush green trees on both sides. Kudle is a small beach and easy to walk on. By this time, we started enjoying the walk, staring at the beach and also at the chicks, well at times…The second mountain we crossed stood between Kudle and Om beach. Almost all the water except for the last bottle was gone and we were to learn a tough lesson on preserving it. Water is one of the most important commodities on a trek. Learn to preserve it, the easier and refreshing the trek gets. Some of us were so thirsty that we almost stood gaping at a group of people guzzling beer! Seems that beer was not available on Kudle beach and the group had brought their own stock. We started climbing the mountain to get to Om beach. A foreigner was kind enough to show us the right way to cross the mountain, nevertheless we got Lost. Following the wrong path, we had to backtrack until we found the right way down the mountain. This was the first on our lost list. There were few more to come...
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The walk on Om beach proved to be bigger than the previous two. Some of us had a sip of cold lemon drink and some went for bhel puri and got started again. Some of us stopped and got on to the rocks, which were very close to the lashing waves. We had to get back on the trek as it was already mid noon, and the sun was hot, scorchy and bearing down on us without mercy. The football we carried along proved handy. We kept kicking it, passing it amongst us while walking. It took us around 45 minutes to get past Om beach and cross over to the next: Half moon beach. The shape of the beach is quite obvious from its name. It took us another 20 odd minutes to cross this beach. We reached a small shack turned shop on our way to the next point, Paradise beach. We gulped down a cool drink at the shop and got back to walking. Paradise beach was quite close at this point, but separated by another steep, quite treacherous rocky shore. Crossing steep rocks and jumping from one to another was quite scary. The awesome sight of the sea and the loud but continuous sound of waves kept us going.
Paradise beach mostly had foreigners. This is a small but wonderfully clean beach. The water looked sparkling and enticing. It was time for lunch and we needed a nice cool place to have the first lunch since we started the trek. A nice big rock on the beach, served us good shade, and we unwound and ate. It is amazing how, when hunger strikes, even the meager of food seems like a full course meal. We hogged on the rotis and chutney as if that was our last meal. The next destination was Barka beach. Thanks to manja, we had maps and journal entries of previous trekkers. The decision was to cross over the mountain adjoining Paradise beach, reach a village called Belikan. and from there get to Barka beach through boat. Just after another tough and steep climb we saw a huge mountain in front of us and no village no-where. We were lucky enough to meet a kind villager called Mahesh, who told us that he had a shop (or call it a small house) on Barka beach and offered to take us there through boat. Without hesitating we accepted the boat ride and had to get down the mountain again. We were back on Paradise beach. Back to a Paradise full of nice curves and glowing sand. After a few minutes and a few refreshing sip of a mango drink we found a boatman calling at us. It's very difficult to control a boat along the shores because of the continuous pounding by waves. The boat was 'parked' just beside the shore, and we jumped into it one by one, throwing in our heavy backpacks first. Our boat ride started…
We were 14 on the boat. Including Mahesh, his friend who drove the propeller and two guys in the front. None of us had life jackets on and only a few knew swimming. We had the worst scare when the boat, far away from the shore almost toppled, letting some water in from one side. The boatman was skilled enough and brought back his steed under control. But honestly, without life jackets, even the best swimmer would find it difficult to swim against that sea. I kept looking at a shoal of rock close to where we were traveling as the only hope if the boat ever toppled. If it did, a swim to the rocks was possible if not difficult. Thankfully, the pooja we offered to lord Shiva at Gokarna proved handy and the boat did not topple, and all of us were still alive. The tide was greater at Barka beach and the boat had to stop on a beach adjacent to it. Manish was injured slightly in the leg after stepping on a sharp piece of rock while jumping off the boat. Mahesh showed us the way across the shore, crossing rocks, again quite slippery and steep. We finally reached Barka beach. This is where we would call it quits and stop for the day. Our own private beach for a mere 350 rupees!
An hour or so passed and all ten of us were in the water. This was what we had been waiting for, all along the trek. Its amazing the force with which waves lash the shore. Some even threw us a few steps away from where we were. There was fresh water available, and we freshened up, getting ready to cook some dinner and sleep over a bonfire. Dinner was done, courtesy manja again. To start we had some delicious soup and Puliyogare rice. We stoked some fire and sat around it for some time. Our plans of sleeping on the beach were washed away by the full moon and with the high tide it brought along. We had to sleep inside the house.
Mahesh turned up early morning and we were ready to start off. Another steep climb and we were on top of another mountain. Mahesh bid adieu and we were off, on our own again. The next beach was Long beach, the longest and toughest beach we would trek. After having a bite at a local fruit, we headed towards Long beach, climbing down the mountain. We had absolutely no water, except for the fresh water stock we took from Braka beach. Honestly I doubted how ‘fresh’ this water was, as no one knew where it came from. Most of us were skeptical to drinking the water. We were finally on Long beach and a fisherman family there offered us some water from their well. This water was sweet, tasting good and really refreshing. After having our heart fill of aqua, and filling up our bottles, we started off again. Long beach has no foreigners or people apart from the fishermen dwelling there. The entire beach loomed large in front of us, almost disappearing from our sight, whenever we tried to see where the beach ended. We trekked half the way and took a detour into a small village, called Gudeangadi. After hogging on bondas and drinking a cool refreshing raagi drink, we came back to the beach, and started walking. I remember manja saying “Sabhi salo, Johnny Walkers ban Jao…keep walking guys”. Manish was unable to walk anymore, with his wound getting worse and called it quits. Nihit and Manish woefully bid adieu and started walking towards the village, with the hope of reaching Kumta and catching a bus from there to Bangalore. We were down to eight souls.
The entire Long beach walk took us three hours and was tough. We finally reached the end of the beach and crashed on a cool, grassy patch with lots of shade. We would sleep well here for 45 minutes or so. We started again and reached the next beach, Semi Circular beach. This was the second best beach after Paradise beach. Not for the refreshing curves, but for how clean the beach and the water were. Reaching end of this beach we were stuck, with the beach hitting hilly terrain. We were forced to climb up the hill and get down again to reach Honnali beach.
Honnali beach is a purely Muslim inhabited beach. The next beach, called Kumta beach is purely Hindu. It is amazing how a thin strip of rock and sand could divide two communities altogether. Nevertheless they seemed to like it as it was, and were in peace. We spent about 20 minutes atop a hill adjacent to Kumta beach, eating, talking, and cracking jokes. After filling up our water stock at Kumta beach we hit a small river joining the sea splitting the beach right into half. With some kind help from locals, we crossed the river and continued walking.
It was evening and the sun set view was astounding. It would take a stone hearted person to walk right across the sun set without even standing to look at one of natures most amazing sight. Spellbound we were, till the Sun God took a dip somewhere below the horizon.
We camped right in the middle of Kumta beach. The plan was to cook dinner there and head for a moonlight walk across the beach. After painfully collecting some firewood, we sat to ready ourselves for the toughest test, cooking dinner out of nothing in the middle of nowhere. With teamwork at its best, we succeeded in stoking enough fire to light the beach for about three hours. The soup came out really well, but the maggi turned a disaster. Hungry and tired, we hogged on the food, without leaving a morsel to spare. The place where we stopped had a deathly look of it. The shore was far away, and we could see the wind blowing sand all across the beach. The darkness added some more mystery and suspicion to that place. We walked again for 25 minutes and decided that was that. Camping at a place far away from the tides, we unpacked our sleeping bags, removed our stinking shoes and sneakers and crashed on the ground.
It was somewhere around 3 AM in the night when I heard Harit shouting and panting. He was seeing a lunar eclipse. This was icing on the cake. If sleeping on the beach was in itself a dream come true, we got to see a full blown eclipse, and the millions of stars the shrouded moon had to show us. The moon was red in half, as if revolving and at the same time burning with fire in a world of its own. The sight was scintillating.
It was 7 AM in the morning and after relieving ourselves, off we went again. Getting some water from kind folk on the beach, we were to cross the last big mountain of our trek. This was our last test and test it was. We had to decide between skipping the next beach and taking a bus to Honnavar from Kumta beach. We decided on climbing the peak, as it looked no-big-deal at the first sight. We fought our way across this mountain, and almost when it beat us to a pulp, we found a clear path leading down the mountain to the next beach, called Ramanagundi beach. The song "Eye of the Tiger" from Survivor could have been dedicated to us at that point, after the brave climb down the mountain.
This is where our trek would end. We walked off the beach towards the highway and caught a bus to Udupi. It was around 15:30 hours when we reached Udupi, and we had enough time to freshen up before catching our bus back to Bangalore at 20:30 hours. Back to civilization we headed, which all of us hated, which we planned to get away from.
Our footprints anyway would have been washed away, slate clean. We left no trace of our trek, apart from sweet memories and loads of friendship.
Trek Pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/amogh.r/GokarnaToHonnavaraTrek
The bus departed KBS around 21:15 hours. The route to Gokarna is one of the most scenic routes I have traveled. Reaching Shimogha, the bus travels through Jog falls, the Gersoppa Ghat section, Honnavara, Kumta and finally our destination, Gokarna. All the passengers in the bus might have guessed from our backpacks if not from our long, never ending conversations that we were on some sort of a trek. It did turn out to be some trek in the end, something that I’ll remember for a long time.
Gokarna is famous for its temple, which has a Shiva lingam. The story of how the lingam got there is itself interesting. We visited the temple thinking of a quick darshana of the lord. It turned out that the poojari would force us into offering a full course pooja. After the pooja, we were even offered temple lunch, which we calmly turned down since we were already late on the trek and the afternoon sun was turning on the heat. We finished a quick breakfast at Pai hotel. This would be our last scrumptious escapade. The next two days would be filled with extreme conditions, a blazing hot sun, very little or no water, dry food and of course a refreshing breeze from the sea carrying droplets of sea water which kept us going till the end.
The trek started off on Gokarna beach. All of us were thrilled at the sight of the sea and the hot sand, which was difficult to walk on, never seemed a hurdle. Once close to the wet sand, walking got easier. Given a chance all us were ready to take off our clothes and jump into the water. But we had to wait, till we camped on a beach that evening. Till then it was satisfying to just watch the shoreline from a distance, and from the mountains around the beach. The shoreline of Gokarna beach extended beyond what our naked eyes could see.
Crossing the Gokarna beach was easy. We had to climb a mountain, and walk across a flat dry piece of land to get to our next destination: kudle beach. The only trekkers we found on the way were foreigners, who kept wishing and saying namasthe, in a par-desi accent. Kudle beach has a nice, scenic approach. The path leading down to the beach from the mountain is covered on both sides by thick vegetation. The path looked like an arcade with huge lush green trees on both sides. Kudle is a small beach and easy to walk on. By this time, we started enjoying the walk, staring at the beach and also at the chicks, well at times…The second mountain we crossed stood between Kudle and Om beach. Almost all the water except for the last bottle was gone and we were to learn a tough lesson on preserving it. Water is one of the most important commodities on a trek. Learn to preserve it, the easier and refreshing the trek gets. Some of us were so thirsty that we almost stood gaping at a group of people guzzling beer! Seems that beer was not available on Kudle beach and the group had brought their own stock. We started climbing the mountain to get to Om beach. A foreigner was kind enough to show us the right way to cross the mountain, nevertheless we got Lost. Following the wrong path, we had to backtrack until we found the right way down the mountain. This was the first on our lost list. There were few more to come...
/>
The walk on Om beach proved to be bigger than the previous two. Some of us had a sip of cold lemon drink and some went for bhel puri and got started again. Some of us stopped and got on to the rocks, which were very close to the lashing waves. We had to get back on the trek as it was already mid noon, and the sun was hot, scorchy and bearing down on us without mercy. The football we carried along proved handy. We kept kicking it, passing it amongst us while walking. It took us around 45 minutes to get past Om beach and cross over to the next: Half moon beach. The shape of the beach is quite obvious from its name. It took us another 20 odd minutes to cross this beach. We reached a small shack turned shop on our way to the next point, Paradise beach. We gulped down a cool drink at the shop and got back to walking. Paradise beach was quite close at this point, but separated by another steep, quite treacherous rocky shore. Crossing steep rocks and jumping from one to another was quite scary. The awesome sight of the sea and the loud but continuous sound of waves kept us going.
Paradise beach mostly had foreigners. This is a small but wonderfully clean beach. The water looked sparkling and enticing. It was time for lunch and we needed a nice cool place to have the first lunch since we started the trek. A nice big rock on the beach, served us good shade, and we unwound and ate. It is amazing how, when hunger strikes, even the meager of food seems like a full course meal. We hogged on the rotis and chutney as if that was our last meal. The next destination was Barka beach. Thanks to manja, we had maps and journal entries of previous trekkers. The decision was to cross over the mountain adjoining Paradise beach, reach a village called Belikan. and from there get to Barka beach through boat. Just after another tough and steep climb we saw a huge mountain in front of us and no village no-where. We were lucky enough to meet a kind villager called Mahesh, who told us that he had a shop (or call it a small house) on Barka beach and offered to take us there through boat. Without hesitating we accepted the boat ride and had to get down the mountain again. We were back on Paradise beach. Back to a Paradise full of nice curves and glowing sand. After a few minutes and a few refreshing sip of a mango drink we found a boatman calling at us. It's very difficult to control a boat along the shores because of the continuous pounding by waves. The boat was 'parked' just beside the shore, and we jumped into it one by one, throwing in our heavy backpacks first. Our boat ride started…
We were 14 on the boat. Including Mahesh, his friend who drove the propeller and two guys in the front. None of us had life jackets on and only a few knew swimming. We had the worst scare when the boat, far away from the shore almost toppled, letting some water in from one side. The boatman was skilled enough and brought back his steed under control. But honestly, without life jackets, even the best swimmer would find it difficult to swim against that sea. I kept looking at a shoal of rock close to where we were traveling as the only hope if the boat ever toppled. If it did, a swim to the rocks was possible if not difficult. Thankfully, the pooja we offered to lord Shiva at Gokarna proved handy and the boat did not topple, and all of us were still alive. The tide was greater at Barka beach and the boat had to stop on a beach adjacent to it. Manish was injured slightly in the leg after stepping on a sharp piece of rock while jumping off the boat. Mahesh showed us the way across the shore, crossing rocks, again quite slippery and steep. We finally reached Barka beach. This is where we would call it quits and stop for the day. Our own private beach for a mere 350 rupees!
An hour or so passed and all ten of us were in the water. This was what we had been waiting for, all along the trek. Its amazing the force with which waves lash the shore. Some even threw us a few steps away from where we were. There was fresh water available, and we freshened up, getting ready to cook some dinner and sleep over a bonfire. Dinner was done, courtesy manja again. To start we had some delicious soup and Puliyogare rice. We stoked some fire and sat around it for some time. Our plans of sleeping on the beach were washed away by the full moon and with the high tide it brought along. We had to sleep inside the house.
Mahesh turned up early morning and we were ready to start off. Another steep climb and we were on top of another mountain. Mahesh bid adieu and we were off, on our own again. The next beach was Long beach, the longest and toughest beach we would trek. After having a bite at a local fruit, we headed towards Long beach, climbing down the mountain. We had absolutely no water, except for the fresh water stock we took from Braka beach. Honestly I doubted how ‘fresh’ this water was, as no one knew where it came from. Most of us were skeptical to drinking the water. We were finally on Long beach and a fisherman family there offered us some water from their well. This water was sweet, tasting good and really refreshing. After having our heart fill of aqua, and filling up our bottles, we started off again. Long beach has no foreigners or people apart from the fishermen dwelling there. The entire beach loomed large in front of us, almost disappearing from our sight, whenever we tried to see where the beach ended. We trekked half the way and took a detour into a small village, called Gudeangadi. After hogging on bondas and drinking a cool refreshing raagi drink, we came back to the beach, and started walking. I remember manja saying “Sabhi salo, Johnny Walkers ban Jao…keep walking guys”. Manish was unable to walk anymore, with his wound getting worse and called it quits. Nihit and Manish woefully bid adieu and started walking towards the village, with the hope of reaching Kumta and catching a bus from there to Bangalore. We were down to eight souls.
The entire Long beach walk took us three hours and was tough. We finally reached the end of the beach and crashed on a cool, grassy patch with lots of shade. We would sleep well here for 45 minutes or so. We started again and reached the next beach, Semi Circular beach. This was the second best beach after Paradise beach. Not for the refreshing curves, but for how clean the beach and the water were. Reaching end of this beach we were stuck, with the beach hitting hilly terrain. We were forced to climb up the hill and get down again to reach Honnali beach.
Honnali beach is a purely Muslim inhabited beach. The next beach, called Kumta beach is purely Hindu. It is amazing how a thin strip of rock and sand could divide two communities altogether. Nevertheless they seemed to like it as it was, and were in peace. We spent about 20 minutes atop a hill adjacent to Kumta beach, eating, talking, and cracking jokes. After filling up our water stock at Kumta beach we hit a small river joining the sea splitting the beach right into half. With some kind help from locals, we crossed the river and continued walking.
It was evening and the sun set view was astounding. It would take a stone hearted person to walk right across the sun set without even standing to look at one of natures most amazing sight. Spellbound we were, till the Sun God took a dip somewhere below the horizon.
We camped right in the middle of Kumta beach. The plan was to cook dinner there and head for a moonlight walk across the beach. After painfully collecting some firewood, we sat to ready ourselves for the toughest test, cooking dinner out of nothing in the middle of nowhere. With teamwork at its best, we succeeded in stoking enough fire to light the beach for about three hours. The soup came out really well, but the maggi turned a disaster. Hungry and tired, we hogged on the food, without leaving a morsel to spare. The place where we stopped had a deathly look of it. The shore was far away, and we could see the wind blowing sand all across the beach. The darkness added some more mystery and suspicion to that place. We walked again for 25 minutes and decided that was that. Camping at a place far away from the tides, we unpacked our sleeping bags, removed our stinking shoes and sneakers and crashed on the ground.
It was somewhere around 3 AM in the night when I heard Harit shouting and panting. He was seeing a lunar eclipse. This was icing on the cake. If sleeping on the beach was in itself a dream come true, we got to see a full blown eclipse, and the millions of stars the shrouded moon had to show us. The moon was red in half, as if revolving and at the same time burning with fire in a world of its own. The sight was scintillating.
It was 7 AM in the morning and after relieving ourselves, off we went again. Getting some water from kind folk on the beach, we were to cross the last big mountain of our trek. This was our last test and test it was. We had to decide between skipping the next beach and taking a bus to Honnavar from Kumta beach. We decided on climbing the peak, as it looked no-big-deal at the first sight. We fought our way across this mountain, and almost when it beat us to a pulp, we found a clear path leading down the mountain to the next beach, called Ramanagundi beach. The song "Eye of the Tiger" from Survivor could have been dedicated to us at that point, after the brave climb down the mountain.
This is where our trek would end. We walked off the beach towards the highway and caught a bus to Udupi. It was around 15:30 hours when we reached Udupi, and we had enough time to freshen up before catching our bus back to Bangalore at 20:30 hours. Back to civilization we headed, which all of us hated, which we planned to get away from.
Our footprints anyway would have been washed away, slate clean. We left no trace of our trek, apart from sweet memories and loads of friendship.
Trek Pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/amogh.r/GokarnaToHonnavaraTrek