Sakleshpur abandoned railway track trek - Donigal to Adkumari

This post courtesy by Naga ---

Fact File: Sakleshpur is on Banglaore-magalore highway (NH48) 225km from bangalore, 36km from hassan, 128 km from mangalore.
trek route: Sakleshpur starting from donigal station to yedakumari station (20km) can be trekked in a day. (Note: This trek is not advisable to do now as the train is operational!!)
On 13^th of August, Saturday we planned to go for a trekking and decided to go to a place which was about 225Kms from Bangalore, 35kms West of Hassan and about 125Kms East from Mangalore.

We reached this place on Sunday early morning by 3:30 am, since it was too dark and this was the first time all of us were going to this place, we decided to take rest until Manjunath's friends arrived. We were Seven of us, Prashanth, Eshwar, Manjunath, Jagadish, Anjan, Imtiaz and me.

The starting point of the trek, Donigal Railway Station was around a 1km from the bus stop.At 5:30 inthe morning we reached the starting point of the trek. The trek starts from here to Yedakumari which is around 20Kms. Now there is no train service in this route, government is converting the entire stretch to a Broad-Gauge, working was going on, hence many people choose to trek on this stretch, along with a beautiful view of the nature. It was a misty morning, with very low visibility hence we waited for mist to clear and dawn to break.

Here is the Gang

Left -> Right Jaga, Nag, Prashanth, Eshwar, Anjan, Khan, Manju.

We started by 6:45 am and started walking down the railway track. There were several tunnels and bridges that we need to cross, within a km we reached the first tunnel, with some distance from that we reached the first bridge, crossing bridges was very exciting, was a bit dangerous though. We exalted the lush greenery all around us, the view from the height of the bridges and we just loved the freshness of the air which we would never get in Bangalore. Nature could not have been any better.

Bridge from different Angles

One among the several tunnels.

The Water Falls was Awesome

We saw Sumo, Tractor which was customized to be used on the railway tracks for carrying the materials for construction and transportation of people.

The Style Kings
We stopped for breakfast at around 9:00am at a small waterfall where we had some chapattis, relaxed for 20minutes and started again. We passed though the longest tunnel, about 250mts, there was a small opening to the right of the tunnel half way through, there was a loudm noise, curious to know if there was something, to our surprise it was an awesome sight of a water fall downside and it was falling from a great height. There were more surprises to come, there was another waterfall but this was accessible so we decided to take bath in the nature, the force of the water was great and we enjoyed the bath. Fresh after bath around 11.00am we started our journey further down the railway track. There were more bridges to come, some bridges were around 200mtrs, and we held our breath as we crossed these bridges. I had almost slipped of on one of the bridges.
We had lot of photo sessions along the way, all of us wanted to show it to our friends, there were several types of flowers and birds in the rich nature, we hardly knew their names but made sure we captured as many as possible. After covering around 13Kms we saw a huge land slide and we were in doubt about our further journey hence checked with the local people, we were told that there were several such landslides ahead and it was very dangerous to go any further. I had only heard and saw in the television about the land slides but an opportunity to see them. We relaxed there for a while enjoying the Mother Nature for some time along with some light snacks. We started after 2 more groups in the morning, but managed go past them and we were the first to cross these 13kms, after all everyone of us very energitic :-p.

We decided to return back at around 12:30pm. It was raining very heavily, hence it was much more difficult to cross those bridges again which were very wet by now, we managed to cross all these bridges very safely after all, seven of us were very strong :-p. We made our way back in the rain the environment was getting a bit cold by now even though it was noon. we were supposed to return back before dawn, as it would be difficult if it gets darker, so we started walking faster than we did in the morning, we reached the same place where we had breakfast in the morning. It was around 3:00pm by now, we got to know that there is a short cut from this place to Maranahalli where we can get buses to Sakleshpuram or directly to Bangalore, now instead of walking back on the railway track we decided to take this route, it was around 3-4Kms from the place where we had our breakfast. We were almost drained by now, with very little energy left, and the path was not all that easy as on the railway track. We had a plan in mind to reach the highway by 4:00pm hence we could not have our Lunch, it really tested our stamina level and wanted us to prove our strength we started from this place and reached the highway by 4:00pm. All of us were very tiered by now, we had a cup of Tea in the nearby tea shop along with some snacks, we hardly could walk by now. We managed to get a bus to Hassan which was around 37Kms. After reaching Hassan we thought of resting in a lodge and go back to Bangalore the next day, but fortunately for us we got a Bangalore bus that was all empty so we decided to return to Bangalore the same night so that we can relax at home.

It was a very exciting trek. We managed to walk approximately 25Kms in a single day. It was a totally unplanned trip but executed to perfection.