WOW Trek to Rayakkottai - Take 2!
WOW Trek to Rayakkottai - Take 2!
- from the Organizers words...:)
Life was on a 'Wake up Swa, saare pal kahe. Wake up Swa, chal kaheen chale..' mode. There was an urge to do something different, something New, something 'out-of-the-box'! And suddenly a friend (and a fellow trekker Shilpa) buzzes and talks about a trek – WOW trek to Rayakottai. With 'should-I' , 'shouldn't I'; some drama with Shilpa on whether I really should go for it; I finally enroll for the trek, and get shortlisted too! And then unreserved train..and meet our organizer Ajita for the first time..and all new people..and then climb and help each other…and then this and that…and then…well...blah blah blah..etc etc etc…
Waitta minnute!
That was the story of a year back – 13th July, 2013! My first trek as a participant..my first trek ever, for that matter!
Well..they talk about 'the Circle of Life', 'what goes around, comes around'..and so, the circle that began a year ago, completed on the same weekend this year, as follows [with a different role, this time!] –
Life was now on 'mera falsafa, kandhe pe mera basta! Chala main jahaan, le chala mujhe rasta..' mode! [Co-incidentally..Ranbir Kapoor again!]. And once again – with a bit of 'should-I', 'shouldn't I'– I finally opened my own event – WOW Trek to Rayakkottai – as an organizer this time.
12th July, 2014: WOW Trek to Rayakkottai:
Rayakkottai peak
Were waiting for a couple of participants at Platform 1 of the City Railway station, when DJ bumped in to give us a surprise visit [they were on a BTC Shivagange trip]. With the participants of mom-kid pair, childhood-buddies pair, and a bundle of creative people (who happily used their organizer as a scapegoat for their camera-testing) - the event was gonna be interesting. No last-minute drop-outs, and a kick of motivation with this!
Boarded the train and started the fun with our 'khaane-ka-drama'. Train was an hour late, which meant we had more time to while inside, and have more fun and munch on more stuff :P . Sushmita turned out to be a great bakra for our pranks & dialog-baazi; and in turn, we (read Yamini, Shaily, Yogi and I) turned into her default models for photoshoot.
Reached Rayakkottai station at around 10.30 am. Weather was little gloomy and windy. Language wasn't a problem, as some of us knew Tamil [the localites were, in fact, more pleased and co-operative with us because of our language skill:P]. After breakfast and a round of introduction, we got our lunch-packs and began our trek. Divided the group of 13 into 3 sub-groups and started climbing. Well..dint notice this in the past (was more of a follow-the-leader back then); but Rayakkottai is an easy trail with markings on small rocks throughout the path.
The climb – a 'heavily-windy-trek!':
The climb was just fun, with nothing else to bother us (but for our photographers who kept experimenting with their new camera, and us). As we climbed further, the weather got even more windy. So after various themes of trekking over the past one year (day-trek, night-trek, rain-trek, 2-day-trek etc..), we had a different experience of a 'heavily-windy-trek'..at times giving us a dash and push too! With comments ranging from 'bachchi-sabko-sambhaalo'[ah..yes..we had a 11-year old rock-climber Vaishnavi among us;)] to 'organizer-ko-paperweight-dedo-warna-uD-jaayegi'- there was no derth of pulling each others' legs throughout.
After a short photo-session, we trekked further in between the broken Fort walls and gates, to meet our destination peak. The last tiny stretch to the peak was a little adventurous [a bush of Cactii that had grown due to rains, had made this stretch little risky..however, with each others' help we ensured that all was safe, unhurt and successfully made it to the peak]
Peak & E(pic):
The peak, as always, was a stunning experience. The girls again got engrossed in their creative photo session for a while; until I had to repeatedly call them out for lunch (gosh – and realized we have had troubled our organizers much more than this, being on the other side :P). With heavy winds blowing, we had a little tough time in finding an appropriate place to have lunch. Finally we settled down, finished our lunch and started to explore around the peak.
While we were thinking of different and creative poses for pics [my 'kuch-alag-karo-kuch-alag-karo' manthra was constantly on], Sumithra (a participant) came up with an idea of forming WOW (woohooo..feels proud to have creative minds amongst you!). And that was it! With a number of different WOW formations, and hilarious trial-errors – we finally came up with this E(pic):D
WOW Formation!
Post the celebrations of this success, the team explored another rock that is located above the peak. Satisfied and all-happy with the view, they returned to the peak for a short chilling session - that turned out to be hilarious again, when our li'l Master Vaishnavi surprised us with handful of chocolates from all of her trouser pockets, and distributed to us [reminded me of my childhood days – difference being – back then – 'distribution' concept was non-existant:P]
Bag-pack and return:
2.30 pm. The return train was scheduled at 4.00pm, which meant it was time for descend. To add an adventure-feel to the entire event, half of the team took a muddy road on the way; and realized that was not the trail connecting to our original route. Taking our route back finally gave the girls a 'trek-feel', and after reconnecting to our original route, we descended down further to reach the base.
Thus successfully accomplishing the event, we walked towards the station – where we had a feedback session, some closing formalities; and then completion of the remaining snacks [train was an hour late again!].
Train arrived. Team dispersed and gathered again at the City Railway station. With thank-yous and promises of meeting in some other trek, some other time; we called it a treknic and dispersed – to continue the journey of our respective lives…
Once again, a beautiful team-work shown by each participant. And a big thanks to Captain Ajju and BTC team for their support! The journey from being a non-trekker to turning into a trekker; and then to a Trek -organizer over the span of exactly a year, has had been incredible!
From all that I have seen and experienced about treks over this year - all I would say is : Trekking ain't a passion, it's a Spirit!
Written By : Swathi Iyer
Organized By : Swathi Iyer
Date of event : 12th July 2014
Members Count : 13
Place : Rayakkottai
Pictures : BTC FB Page
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